Folk Art (Fall 1998) by American Folk Art Museum

FOLK ART MAGAZINE OF THE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART * FALL 1998 * $6.00

Trade figure of Punch (detail), New England, late 19th - early 20th C., 74" x 36" x 15", wood with polychrome and metal bracing.

RICCO/MARESCA GALLERY529WEST 20TH ST THIRD FL NYC NY 10011 TEL 212/627-4819 FAX 212/627-5117 E-MAIL rmgal@aol.com WEB www.ricomaresca.com

STEVE MILLER • AMERICAN FOLK ART •

WEATHERVANES OF THE 19TH CENTURY Opening September 15, 1998

BROWN TROUT WEATHERVANE From a 19th century New York State fishing camp,45"in length

17 East 96th Street, New York, New York 10128(212)348-5219 Gallery hours are from 1:00 pm until 6:00 pm,Tuesday through Saturday. Other hours are available by appointment.

BRUNO DEL FAVERO Born: 1910 Princeton, MI

Died: 1995 Greenwich, CT

Town by Bay, Oil/Board, 32.25" x 31.5"

IN MEMORY of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Visionary genius, master archivist, eternal mentor and, still and always, dear dear friend

CAN7IN-MO1RIS GALLERY 560 BROADWAY, SUITE 405B, NEW YORK, NY 10012 TEL: (212) 226-3768 FAX: (212) 226-0155 e-mail: Mysteries@aol.com • www.artnet.com/cavinmorris.html • www.nytoday.com/cavinmorris

The Fleisher/Oilman Gallery honors the Memory of

Herbert Waide Hemphill In 1974 we met a true visionary, Herbert Waide Hemphill. It was his passion for art by untrained artists that helped us define our own esthetic.

Morris Hirshfield, Girl with Plumed Hot, 1945, oil on canvas, 34" x 26

The Fleisher/Oilman Gallery wishes to acknowledge our debt to him. Without his early guidance we know we wouldn't be where we are today. It was his vision and love of 20th century Self-taught Art that inspired us. We join the world of art in mourning Bert's death.

FLEISHER 0 L L NI A N GALLERY 211 S. 17th Street Philadelphia 0 3 9 1 1 (215)545.7562 (Fax)545â&#x20AC;˘ 6140

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FOLK ART VOLUME 23, NUMBER 3 / FALL 1998

FEATURES

David Stansbury

GIFTS OF MARQUETRY FROM THE HIRSCHHORN FOUNDATION TO THE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART Richard Miihlberger

Cover: Detail of MASONIC PLAQUE IN THE FORM OF A MASTER'S CHART: Maker unidentified, probably Natick, Massachusetts, 1899, marquetry, parquetry, printed and painted paper, 18Vx 3136 x,Y16", Museum ofAmerican Folk Art, gift of The Hirschhorn Foundation, 1997.6.4

Folk Art is published four times a year by the Museum of American Folk Art,61 West 62nd Street, NY,NY 10023, Tel. 212/977-7170, Fax 212/977-8134. Prior to Fall 1992, Volume 17, Number 3,Folk Art was published as The Clarion. Annual subscription rate for members is included in membership dues. Copies are mailed to all members. Single copy $6.00. Published and copyright 1998 by the Museum of American Folk Art,61 West 62nd Street, NY,NY 10023. The cover and contents of Folk Art are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any manner without written consent. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Museum of American Folk Art. Unsolicited manuscripts or photographs should be accompanied by return postage. Folk Art assumes no responsibility for the loss or damage of such materials. Change of address: Please send both old and new addresses and allow five weeks for change. Advertising: Folk Art endeavors to accept advertisements only from advertisers whose reputation is recognized in the trade, but despite the care with which the advertising department screens photographs and texts submitted by its advertisers, it cannot guarantee the unquestionable authenticity of objects or quality of services advertised in its pages or offered for sale by its advertisers, nor can it accept responsibility for misunderstandings that may arise from the purchase or sale of objects or services advertised in its pages. The Museum is dedicated to the exhibition and interpretation of folk art and it is a violation of its principles to be involved in or to appear to be involved in the sale of works of art. For this reason, the Museum will not knowingly accept advertisements for Folk Art that illustrate or describe objects that have been exhibited at the Museum within one year of placing an advertisement.

BERT Julia Weissman

HERBERT WAIDE HEMPHILL JR. 1929-1998 Tanya Heinrich

THE MYSTERY OF J. BROWN Elizabeth V. Warren

BEYOND BELIEF: THE FLUSTERING TRUTH OF SIDESHOW BANNER ART Michael McCabe

DEPARTMENTS

EDITOR'S COLUMN

DIRECTOR'S LETTER

FALL ANTIQUES SHOW SPECIAL

WALKING TOURS

BOOKS OF INTEREST

JEAN LIPMAN: A PERSONAL MEMOIR Gerard C. Wertkin

A CHARMING HIRSHFIELD ENTERS THE COLLECTION Stacy C. Hollander

MINIATURES

MUSEUM REPRODUCTIONS PROGRAM

MUSEUM NEWS

FALL PROGRAMS

TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS

TRUSTEES/DONORS

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 5

EDITOR'S

COLUMN

ROSEMARY GABRIEL

he Museum's exciting fall season has begun. This year we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Fall Antiques Show; see our special section starting on page 15. The exhibition "Masterpieces in Wood: American Folk Marquetry from The Hirschhorn Foundation," opens on October 3 and will be on view through January 10, 1999. The exhibition includes more than seventy-five objects and celebrates five magnificent gifts to the Museum's collection. Read about them in our cover story,"Gifts of Marquetry from The Hirschhorn Foundation to the Museum of American Folk Art," by guest curator Richard Miihlberger. This year, the Museum's community has lost two important leaders: Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. and Jean Lipman. The latter is remembered in "Jean Lipman: A Personal Memoir," by director Gerard C. Wertkin, and "A Charming Hirshfield Enters the Collection," an account of the most recent purchase for the Museum's collection by the Jean Lipman Fellows, written by curator Stacy C. Hollander. Julia Weissman, who collaborated with Bert Hemphill on Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists, has recorded her thoughts and remembrances of her dear colleague and good friend. "Bert," by Julia Weissman,is accompanied by associate editor Tanya Heinrich's overview of Hemphill's life and his decadeslong commitment to the Museum of American Folk Art. As Hemphill had an acute knowledge of the entire field, but a special passion for contemporary folk art, Elizabeth V. Warren, who served as the Museum's PORTRAIT OF MRS. ELIZABETH curator from 1984 to 1990, covering all aspects of THOMAS William Matthew Prior eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century folk art, East Boston, Massachusetts has a true affinity for traditional forms. Her most recent C. 1850 Oil on academy board research has begun to unravel "The Mystery of J. 17 x 13" Brown." She shares her fmdings about this elusive Museum of American Folk Art, nineteenth-century portrait painter in her informative, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 1964.1.1 beautifully illustrated essay. In direct contrast to the chaste, slim, comely visage of Laura Hall painted by J. Brown and reproduced on page 59, page 67 reveals a bikini-clad, more than voluptuous form of a pretty sideshow performer painted by banner artist Snap Wyatt. Michael McCabe, who captured our imaginations with "Flash & Flashbacks: The Enduring Art of Tattoo" in the Summer 1994 issue of Folk Art, has written "Beyond Belief: The Flustering Truth of Sideshow Banner Art" for this issue. McCabe has again documented some of the oral history of artists generally outside the canon of art. These quotations and the author's commentary provide numerous insights into the carnivals' world of fantasy and commerce. As a fitting endnote, let me say that if one had been lucky enough to visit Bert Hemphill's home,one would have encountered a nineteenth-century portrait and a sideshow banner displayed with equal reverence and joy. In the same spirit of inclusiveness, I truly hope that you enjoy reading this issue of Folk Art.

FOLK ART Rosemary Gabriel Editor and Publisher Jeffrey Kibler, The Magazine Group,Inc. Design Tanya Heinrich Associate Editor Jocelyn Meinhardt Production Editor Benjamin J. Boyington Copy Editor John Hood Advertising Sales Mel Novatt Advertising Sales Patrick H. Calkins Advertising Graphics Craftsmen Litho Printers MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART Administration Gerard C. Wertkin Director Riccardo Salmona Deputy Director Jeffrey S. Grand Director ofFinance and Operations Susan Conlon Assistant to the Director Natasha Ghany Accountant Daniel Rodriguez Mailroom Beverly McCarthy Mail Order/Reception Collections & Exhibitions Stacy C. Hollander Curator Ann-Marie Reilly Registrar Judith Gluck Steinberg Assistant Registrar/ Coordinator, Traveling Exhibitions Sandra Wong Assistant Registrar Dale Gregory Gallery Manager Brian Pozun Weekend Gallery Manager Gina Bianco Consulting Conservator Elizabeth V. Warren Consulting Curator Howard Lanser Consulting Exhibition Designer Kenneth R. Bing Security Departments Cheryl Aldridge Director ofDevelopment Beth Bergin Membership Director Marie S. DiManno Director ofMuseum Shops Susan Flamm Public Relations Director Alice J. Hoffman Director ofLicensing Joan D.Sandler Director ofEducation and Collaborative Programs Janey Fire Photographic Services Chris Cappiello Membership Associate Jennifer Claire Scott Special Events/Development Associate Mary C.Thomas Development Associate Kathy Maqsudi Membership Assistant Wendy Barret() Membership Clerk Edith C. Wise Consulting Librarian Eugene P. Sheehy Volunteer Librarian Rita Keckeissen Volunteer Librarian Katya Ullmann Library Assistant

Programs Lee Kogan Director, Folk Art Institute/Senior Research Fellow Madelaine Gill Administrative Assistant/Education Barbara W.Cate Educational Consultant Dr. Marilynn Karp Director, New York University Master's and Ph.D. Program in Folk Art Studies Dr. Judith Reiter Weissman Coordinator, New York University Program Arlene Hochman Docent Coordinator Lynn Steuer Outreach Coordinator Museum Shop Staff Managers: Dorothy Gargiulo, Caroline Hohenrath, Ursula Morillo, Rita Pollitt, Brian Pozun;Security: Bienvenido Medina; Volunteers: Marie Anderson, Olive Bates, Angela Clair, Sally Frank, Millie Gladstone, Katie McAuliffe, Nancy Mayer, Marie Peluso, Judy Rich, Frances Rojack,Phyllis Selnick, Lola Silvergleid, Maxine Spiegel, Myrna Tedles, Mary Wamsley Museum of American Folk Art Book and Gift Shop Two Lincoln Square(Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets) New York, NY 10023-6214 212/496-2966 Administrative Offices Museum of American Folk Art 61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023-7015 212/977-7170,Fax 212/977-8134, http://www.folkartmuse.org

6 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

ART OF THE SIDESHOW

Snap Wyatt, MONA,Tampa, Fla., c. 1950, 138 x 118 inches. A large selection of sideshow banners are available upon request. Carl Hammer co-authored FREAK SHOW: Sideshow Banner Art, published by Chronicle Books, 1996, available at most bookstores

CARL HAMMER GALLERY CARL HAMMER GALLERY,INC. 200 W.SUPERIOR ST., CHICAGO,IL. 60610 Ph: 312-266-8512 Fx: 312-266-8510 E-Mail: hammergall@aol.com

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE GALLERY 594 Broadway #205

New York, NY 10012

212-966-1530

MON.-SAT. 11-6

20 x 60 inches

CHARLES BEN EFIEL Charles Benefiel's images of dolls are compulsively made by applying dots of ink onto paper that was toned with tea and furniture varnish. The worn altered dolls that were passed on from his grandmother are charged with personal meaning along with his obsession of being reduced to numbers by the outside world.

AARON BIRNBAUM (1895-1998) You Keep Quiet! Know What I'm Doing, 1975

K.S. ART IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF ITS NEW GALLERY SPACE - Inaugural Exhibition Works by Gallery Artists Gayleen Aiken Aaron Birnbaum Freddie Brice Ray Hamilton

Jonathan Lerman Lady Shalimar Chris Murray Philip Travers

September 12 - October 11, 1998 Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 11:00 - 6:00 and by appointment - Kerry Schuss, Director

K.S. Art 73 LEONARD STREET NY NY 10013 212 219 1489

Watercolor on paper. Inscribed "Julia Pike in her 7th yr" circa 1830. 4 1/2" x 6"

DAVID WHEATCROFT 220 East Main Street, Westborough, Massachusetts 01581 508-366-1723

SAMUEL HERRUP ANTIQUES Box 248, 435 SHEFFIELD PLAIN RD., SHEFFIELD, MA.01257 (413) 229-0424 â&#x20AC;˘ FAX (413) 229-2829

Painted and decorated two-drawer pine blanket chest, New England, circa 1820-30. Four colors including green. Superb layout of "sponged" design across the front and down the sides. Excellent condition.(Drawer pulls old but not original.) A similar blanket chest, by the same maker, is in the Stencil House of the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont. Ht. 36 '/2": W.42 3/4": D. 18 74".

CHRISTIE'S

AMERICAN FOLK ART

Coming in January 1999: A molded and gilded copper pig weathervane, American, possibly Cushing & White, Waltham, Massachusetts, late 19th century.

Property for Christie's January American Folk Art auction is currently being accepted. For further information, please contact Susan Kleckner at 212 546 1181.

502 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10022 tel: 212 546 1000 catalogues: 800 395 6300 www.christies.com

DIRECTOR'S

LETTER

GERARD C. WERTKIN

n many organizations, persons who hold emeritus the warmth of his smile at a meeting, and in Jean's, positions do so solely by virtue of their past contrithrough an emphatic, approving message on a postbutions to the fulfillment of the institutional miscard—has meant as much to me as I know it did to my sion—there is little emphasis on the here and now. predecessor, Robert Bishop, with whom both shared At the Museum of American Folk Art, leaders close and abiding relationships. In my own enthusiasm who have attained emeritus rank more often than for the special qualities of the Musuem of American not have continued to participate actively, providFolk Art, I may use the expression "Museum family" ing inspiration and direction, and helping to plan too often, but the loss of two great comrades-in-arms, for the future. For these reasons, the recent thinning and the outpouring of genuine affection from so many of the ranks of Trustees Emeriti has represented members of the Museum, proves to me again how a profound loss. much like a family we truly are. PORTRAIT OF ELIZA GORDON (MRS. ZOPHAR Herbert W.Hemphill Jr. was one of six founding This thought came to mind again in another very WILLARD BROOKS), Ruth Whittier Shute and trustees to whom the Board of Regents of the State moving context. In the Winter 1997/98 issue of Folk Dr. Samuel Addison Shute, Peterborough, New Hampshire, c. 1833, watercolor and Education Department granted a charter for the fledgArt, the Museum paid tribute to Maridean Hutton, a ling Museum of American Folk Art on June 23, 1961. gold metallic paint on paper, 24% 19". longtime docent and, prior to her death last year, chilMuseum of American Folk Art, 1981.12.24. He served for almost ten years as the Museum's first dren's workshop coordinator. I recently learned that Purchased from the collection of Howard curator and was elected Trustee Emeritus in 1981. Bert and lean Lipman. this caring volunteer had provided generously for the had a vision for the Museum that expanded its boundMuseum in her will, leaving $30,000 to benefit the aries and opened its doors to a wide variety of artistic expressions—a Museum's Folk Art Institute and general programming.I feel privivision that continues to impact upon programming to this day. In recent leged to underscore that her legacy is not limited to her thoughtful years he was a significant force on the Collections Commmittee of the bequest. The current leaders of the Museum's children's workshop proBoard of Trustees, and in that role he encouraged the same expansive, gram, Beth Connor and Ann Martocci, continue to provide a variety of adventurous, and affirmative approach to collection development that wonderful services to young people,following the model and high he had followed through more than three decades of close association standards that Maridean Hutton developed. with the Museum. His untimely death on May 8 in New York deprives Maridean Hutton's bequest comes at a time of widening support for the Museum of one of its dearest friends, a person of passionate comthe Museum and its programs, both through the capital campaign and mitment, quiet dignity, and enduring influence. through general program development. Among recent gifts, I record Although Jean Lipman was not among the founders of the Museum, with thanks contributions from the following: Olive F. Watson, Jeff she joined the Board in 1963, the same year that the Museum began Soref, Laurie Wolfe and Ann C.S. Benton, Elizabeth Lee Sample and regular operations in a town house at 49 West 53rd Street in New York. Brenda Powers, Susi Wuennenberg, Rosita Sarnoff, Nancy M. GalShe belonged to an earlier generation than Bert Hemphill; lagher, and Frank Moore for "Mary Ann Willson: Artist indeed, she was among those who had participated in the Maid"; Studio Art Quilt Associates, C & T Publishing, development of the field of American folk art in the Inc., Fairfield/Maker of Poly-fil® Brand Products, late 1930s and 1940s. At the time that she began P & B Fabrics, Inc., Quilters Newsletter Magazine, her Trusteeship, she had already established a repuQuitters Only from Springs Industries, Inc., and tation as a collector, scholar, and writer, having Quilts, Inc. for "Edge to Edge: Selections from published American Primitive Painting in 1942. Her Studio Art Quilt Associates"; TENNECO and election as a Trustee Emerita in 1978 did not signal a American Woodworker magazine for "Masterpieces withdrawal from participation in the Museum. If anyin Wood: American Folk Marquetry from the PINTAIL DRAKE DECOY,Steve Ward and Lemuel Ward, Crisfield, Maryland, c. 1935, painted wood, Hirschhorn Foundation"; and The Andy Warhol thing, she became even more involved, giving freely glass eyes, 7/ 1 4 x 18 x 8, /8". Museum of Ameriof her time and resources and working closely with Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Judith can Folk Art, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., Museum curator Elizabeth V. Warren on two major 1964.1.4 Rothschild Foundation for "Nellie Mae Rowe: exhibitions that she had conceived:"Young America: Ninety-Nine and a Half Won't Do." A Folk-Art History" in 1986 and "Five Star Folk Art: Perhaps the greatest financial challenge facing One Hundred American Masterpieces" in 1990. During the last year or museums today is the funding of exhibitions, with rising costs and two,I had the pleasure of working with Jean Lipman on a longstanding competition for the same dollars significantly greater than ever before. interest of hers, a consideration of travel and transportation in America Under these circumstances, the extent of support for the Museum and as documented in the work of American folk artists. She was a princiits programs from foundations, corporations, and individuals is heartenpled, strong-willed, and loyal colleague, secure in her aesthetic choices ing. Spearheading our fund-raising efforts is Cheryl Aldridge, the and her place in the field, generous with counsel and advice. Jean LipMuseum's director of development. I am deeply grateful to her and to man died in her home in Carefree, Arizona, on June 20. the donors who underwrite the Museum's yearly round of exhibitions. On a personal note, I will miss both these good friends enormously. To them and to you, the Museum's members and friends, goes this Having their encouragement—in Bert's case, often expressed through expression of profound appreciation.*

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 13

Extraordinary Folk

0SOTHEBY'S, INC. 1998 WILLIAM F. RU

Sotheby's salutes the Museum of American Folk Art and the Fall Antiques Show, marking 20 years of friendship.

Pair of portraits purchased by the Museum of American Folk Art from the legendary Collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little

Inquiries: Nancy Druckman or Lauren Bresnan (212) 606-7225

Attributed to Reuben Moulthrop

fax (212) 606-7038

(1763-1814) Oil on canvas 45 by 36 in.(114.3 by 91.4 cm.) Sold for $675,000 at Sotheby's New York

Catalogues: (800) 444-3709; outside the continental U.S.

on January 29, 1994

(203) 847-0465 fax (203) 849-0223

SOTHEBY'S

Sotheby's 1334 York Avenue New York, NY 10021 www.sothebys.com

20TH ANNIVERSARY FALL ANTIWES SHOW

Museum of American Folk Art Benefit Preview Park Avenue Armory Wednesday, November 18 6:00-9:00 P.M.

CAROUSEL HORSE WITH JEWELS Marcus C. IIlions Coney Island, New York c. 1915 Polychromed wood, leather, metal, horsehair, and colored glass 26/ 1 2 46/ 1 2 10" Museum of American Folk Art, gift of the City of New York, Department of Parks and Recreation, 1982.4.2

ome one, come all to the greatest event of the Fall! The 20th Anniversary Fall Antiques Show Benefit Preview honors the tremendous success of the event's chairs over the last two decades, including Karen Cohen, Lucy and Mike Danziger, Ralph Esmerian, Susan Gutfreund, Susan Klein, Wendy and Stephen Lash, Jean Lipman, Rachel Newman, Allison & Peter Rockefeller, Cynthia Van Allen Schaffner, Karen Schuster, Donna & Elliott Slade, Sanford Smith, Kathryn Steinberg, and Tim and Nina Zagat. The 1998 Benefit Preview Chairs, Nancy Mead and Marian A. Bott, along with Junior Committee Chair Alexis Shein Contos and Advisory Chairs Lucy Culhnan Danziger and Wendy Lehman Lash, are planning "A Carnival of Celebration." A highlight of the celebration will be a special exhibition, "Folk Art Treasures: Highlights from 20 Years of the Fall Antiques Show," which will be on view at the Armory for the duration of the show. The exhibition will feature some of the extraordinary pieces bought at this annual event by both collectors and the Museum over the past two decades. Country Living magazine once again joins the Museum as a Corporate Leader of the Benefit Preview. Special thanks to Christie's for designing and printing the festive and exciting invitation featuring Carousel Horse with Jewels. Fall Antiques Show Education Chairs Kathy Booth, Vera Jelinek, Anne Mai, and Julie Palley have organized "Folk Art Treasures: In the Company of Experts," a series of guided walking tours of the show, on the mornings of Thursday, Nov. 19, and Saturday, Nov. 21. For more information on the walking tours, see page 16. All proceeds from the Benefit help to support the Museum's educational programs, exhibitions, and publications. Benefit Preview ticket prices are as follows: Benefactor, $750($680 is tax-deductible); Patron, $500 ($430 tax-deductible); Donor, $300 ($240 tax-deductible); Supporter, $175($125 tax-deductible); and Junior, specially priced for those 35 years and under, $75 ($25 tax-deductible). To make reservations for the Benefit Preview on Wednesday evening, Nov. 18, please call Jennifer Scott at the Museum's administrative offices, 212/977-7170.

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 15

20TH ANNIVERSARY FALL ANTIQUES SHOW

American Folk Art Sidney Gecker

FALT ANTIQUES SHOW vvruLNING TOURS & SPECIAL EXHIBITION The Museum of American Folk Art presents FOLK ART TREASURES:IN THE COMPANY OF EXPERTS Park Avenue Armory Park Avenue and 67th Street New York City

Thursday,November 19 10:30 A.M.

Saturday,November 21 9:30 A.M.

18th-and 19th-Century Furniture Leigh Keno,dealer, American antiques

Ceramics Willam C. Ketchum Jr., adjunct professor, New York University

Folk Painting Stacy C. Hollander,curator, Museum of American Folk Art

18th- and 19th-Century Furniture David Gallager, appraiser, William Doyle Galleries

Folk Portraiture Nancy Druckman,senior vice president, Sotheby's

Paintings and Watercolors Elizabeth V. Warren, consulting curator, Museum of American Folk Art

Folk Traditions of the Pennsylvania Germans Susan Kleckner, vice president, Christie's Quilts Judith Weissman, associate professor, New York University

Regional Traditions Gerard C. Wertkin, director, Museum of American Folk Art Schoolgirl Art Lee Kogan, director of the Folk Art Institute, Museum of American Folk Art

Tickets $35 for Museum members $45 for non-members Ticket price includes admission to the show. Space is limited; reservations must be made in advance. For more information and to register, please call Madelaine Gill in the Museum's education department, 212/977-7170.

FINE EARLY 20TH CENTURY WHIRLIGIG WOOD & IRON HEIGHT':33 INCHES 226 West 21st Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 (212) 929-8769, Appointment Suggested Subject to prior sale.

18 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

Folk Art Treasures: The Basics A special Junior Group walking tour included in price of a Junior Preview ticket Open to individuals 35 years of age and under Friday, November 20 6:30 P.M.

Folk Art Treasures: Highlights from 20 Years of the Fall Antiques Show A unique retrospective at the Park Avenue Armory that will highlight some of the extraordinary pieces of folk art and Americana purchased at the Fall Antiques Show over the last two decades

John Sideli Art & Antiques Stylish Objects of the 18th, 19th &20th Centuries

Exceptional Horse and Sulky Weathervane c.1875. Classic form and superb untouched surface.

214 ROUTE 71 • PO BOX 149 • NORTH EGREMONT, MA 01252 • 413. 528. 2789 MELISSA GREENE, ASSOCIATE • WESTPORT, CT • 203. 227. 2638

20TH ANNIVERSARY FALL ANTIQVES SHOW

STELLA RUBIN 12300 Glen Road Potomac, MD 20854 (Near Washington, D.C.) AGMS. 'WNW

.1r71114111Marl •VAGIIIIIMMCW

411P • ZIA 1,0

(Detail) Charleston, South Carolina Broderie Perse Quilt Circa 1835

Fine Antique Quilts and Decorative Arts By appointment 11.112.•

(301)948-4187 •al.

..moun • •• • -.1•11.- .11

Mario Polio P.O. Box 2716 Kingston, N.Y. 12402 914-246-8544

Blue Mountain Saugerties, N.Y. 800-539-8544

By Appointment Only

19c Horse Shoeing Sign 36 x 40

18 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

"Man.

.9111P

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE GALLERY

AARNE ANTON ART & ANTIQUES 594 BROADWAY #205, NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 966 - 1530 MON - SAT 11-6

Two of a group of horse drawings on cardboard found in an early share croppers cabin in Georgia. Signed Beatrice Cantrell and inscribed "Are all the children in?"on upper picture. 11 x 14 inches, early 1900's.

20TH ANNIVERSARY FALL ANTIQUES SHOW 41111116 BOOKS

ghe MANHATTAN ART & ANTIQUES CENTER The Nation's Largest and Finest Antiques Center. Over 100 galleries offering Period Furniture, Jewelry, Silver, Americana, Orientalia, Africana and other Objets d'Art. 1050 SECOND AVENUE(AT 56TH ST.) NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022 PRESENTS

INTEREST

he following recent titles are available at the Museum of American Folk Art Book and Gift Shop at 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets, New York City. To order by mail, please call 212/4962966. Museum members receive a 10% discount. American Cabinetmakers: Marked American Furniture, 1640-1940, William C. Ketchum Jr. with the Museum of American Folk Art, Crown, 1995, 404 pages, hardcover, $45 American Expressions ofLiberty: Art ofthe People, by the People, for the People, Mingei International Museum, 1996, 168 pages, hardcover, $45 American Folk Marquetry: Masterpieces in Wood, Richard Miihlberger, Museum of American Folk Art, 1998, 240 pages, hardcover, $65 American Painted Furniture, Cynthia V.A. Schaffner and Susan Klein, Clarkson Potter, 1997, 224 pages, hardcover, $65

MARQUETRY IN FABRIC - "STARBURST" within a field of smaller stars pieced quilt, c. 1875-80.

LAURA FISHER Gallery #84 New York City's largest, most exciting selection of Antique Quilts, Hooked Rugs, Coverlets, Paisley Shawls, Beacon Blankets, Vintage Accessories and American Folk Art. Laura Fisher: Tel: 212-838-2596 The Manhattan Art & Antiques Center: Tel: 212-355-4400 • Fax: 212-355-4403 Open Daily 10:30-6, Sun. 12-6 Convenient Parking • Open to the Public

20 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

American Windsor Chairs, Nancy Goyne Evans, Hudson Hills Press in association with The Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, 1996,744 pages, hardcover, $125

Glorious American Quilts: The Quilt Collection ofthe Museum ofAmerican Folk Art, Elizabeth V. Warren and Sharon L. Eisenstat, Museum of American Folk Art/Penguin Studio, 1996, 203 pages, hardcover,$34.95 Plains Indian Drawings 18651935: Pagesfrom a Visual History, Janet Catherine Berlo, editor, The American Federation of Arts and The Drawing Center/ Abrams, 1996,240 pages, hardcover,$60 A Quiet Sprint: Amish Quilts from the Collection ofCindy Tietze and Stuart Hodosh, Donald B. Kraybill, Patria T. Herr, and Jonathan Holstein, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1996, 232 pages, paperback,$35 Secrets ofthe Dark Chamber: The Art ofthe American Daguerreotype, Merry A. Foresta and John Wood, National Museum of American Art/Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 324 pages, paperback, $37.95 A Shaker Sister's Drawings: Wild Plants Illustrated by Cora Helena Sarle, David Larkin, editor, The Monacelli Press, 1997, 86 pages, hardcover, $24.95 The Shaker World: Art, Life, Belief, John T. Kirk, Abrams, 1997,286 pages, hardcover, $60

The Bard Brothers: Painting America Under Steam and Sail, Anthony J. Peluso Jr., Abrams, 1997, 175 pages, hardcover, $35

Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art, John Baeder, Abrams, 1996, 144 pages, paperback, $19.95

Designfor Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front, William L. Bird Jr. and Harry R. Rubenstein, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, 110 pages, paperback, $17.95

Spiritually Moving: A Collection ofAmerican Folk Art Sculpture, Tom Geismar and Harvey Kahn, Abrams, 1998, 176 pages, hardcover,$125

Folk Art ofSpain and the Americas: El Alma del Pueblo, Marion Oettinger Jr., editor, San Antonio Museum of Art/Abbeville Press, 1997, 200 pages, hardcover, $49.95

Tramp Art One Notch at a Time: The Craft, the Techniques & the Makers, Clifford A. Wallach and Michael Cornish, Wallach-Irons Publishing, 1998, 176 pages, hardcover, $65

ALLAN Americana This masterpiece of American marquetry is part of a ten-piece suite we are now offering, , made between 1919-193 ' in Portland, Oregon. Complete documentation available.

Tribute to America lamp Christopher Moe Portland, Oregon, 1931

Allan & Penny Katz â&#x20AC;˘ By Appointment 25 Old Still Road, Woodbridge, Connecticut 06525 (203) 397-8144

20TH ANNIVERSARY FALL ANTIQUES SHOW

EXHIBITING ADA/HISTORIC DEERFIELD ANTIQUES SHOW OCTOBER 10 & 11

JUDITH AND JAMES MILNE

ANTIQUES, INC_

PATRICK BELL

6465 Route 202 New Hope, PA 18938 215-862-5055 fox: 215-862-0550 Appointment Preferred

RARE CHILD'S POND BOAT, C. 1880 46"H 54"L 506 EAST 74TH ST. NEW YORK CITY (212)472-0107

QUILTS

PROVENCE ...the book availablefrom yourfavorite bookseller ...the quilts availablefrom

Kathryn Berenson Exhibiting at the Fall Antiques Show at the Armory November 19 — 22

22 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

ANTIQUE ARTS

Robert Graham, Sr. (1918-1993) Lincolnville Beach, Maine (A Tongue-in-Cheek) Self portrait, c. 1982-92 Average figure height 10"

A retired auto parts salesman, Army veteran of WWII, call fireman and past president of several civic organizations, Bob Graham had a hobby. He carved and painted wooden sculptures, some as single statues, others in multiple vignettes. Some serious, some amusing. Sometimes risque and sometimes lewd, Bob Graham portrayed his friends and neighbors . . . in the nude. Maybe living only seven miles from Camden, the original Peyton Place, was Bob Graham's artistic license. But we have it on good authority from his son that Graham's wife, "burned the bad ones!" Approximately 90 figures make up the 50+ sculptures carved in the last ten years of his life, sold as a single body of work.

RICK LEE â&#x20AC;˘ LINCOLN, MA â&#x20AC;˘ 781-259-0807 BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

Sanford Smith's

20th Anniversary Celebration

FALL ANTIQUES SHOW at the Armory * NEW DATES *

NOVEMBER 19-22, 1998 THURSDAY & FRIDAY NOON-9PM SATURDAY 11ANI-7PM • SUNDAY NOON-6PM PREVIEW NOVEMBER 18th

6PM-9PM •

Info: 212.977.7170

LOAN EXHIBIT Masterpieces purchased at the Fall Antiques Show over the past 20 years MORNING WALKING TOURS Friday & Saturday • Info: 212.977.7170

Generousfunding is provided by

COUNTRY LIVING Magazine, celebrating its 20th Anniversary

THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY Park Avenue & 67th Street, New York City SANFORD L. SMITH & ASSOCIATES 68 East 7th Street New York, NY 10003 • 212-777-5218 Fax: 212-477-6490 • Email: smith@freeverse.com

209-211 W. FRANKLIN

WEBB GALLERY

WAXAHACHIE, TX 75165

972-938-8085

.4115

-----râ&#x20AC;˘ 1/9i!fi ""Vh1,

_ 11,111.1.

-TC4V

C. A. A. DELLSCHAU

CORNUCOPIA 1.0.0.F. c.1880 Carved and polychromed pine. Turned and fluted horn with gilded band and tip. Length 13"

HEART IN HAND 1.0.0.F. c.1880 Handcarved and polychromed pine. Height 9"

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 25

WILLIAM DAWSON 1901-1990 CLEMENTINE HUNTER MOSE TOLLIVER "PAPPY" KITCHENS

WILLIE WHITE

GERTRUDE MORGAN

"CHIEF" WILLEY

MARY T. SMITH

JOSEPH YOAKUM

Horse Play, acrylic on board, 25" x 3V, 1985

WILLIAM PELTIER • FINE AND FOLK ART 376 Millaudon St. • New Orleans, LA 70118 • By Appointment Tel: (504) 861-3196 • Fax: (504) 862-7403 E-Mail: wpeltier@aol.com • Web Site: http://www.peltierart.com

ANGELA USREY GALLERY an

american

art

gallery

raph • axon

ant

SPECIALIZING IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN FOLK ART

SYBIl GIBSON, STUDY IN PINK AND GREEN, 24 X 29, 1993

26 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

101 FRAZIER AVENUE CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE 37405 423.265.2760 (FORMERLY NORTH SHORE GALLERY)

EL ALMA

I PUEBLO

Spanish Folk Art and It

don in the Americas

SEPTEMBER

ECEMBER

Made possible by Ford Motor Company

c/Wielje(georWornfter,y, AMERICAS SOCIETY • 680 PARK AVENUE THE SPANISH INSTITUTE • 684 PARK AVENUE 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily except Mondays. For information about our public programs, please call 212 249 8950. La Inmaculada (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception), 19th c., Gerona, Spain. Polychromed wood, glass, wire; 36 x 14 inches (91 <35 cm). Peter P. Cecere, Reston, Virginia. Photo: Tom Humphrey

ANNOUNCEMENTS

JEAN LIPMAN: A Personal Memoir By Gerard C. Wertkin uring the first four or five years of my employment as assistant director of the Museum of American Folk Art in the early 1980s, I shared an office with Robert Bishop,then the Museum's director. We worked just a few feet away from each other, and it was easy to observe when something of unusual interest occurred at either desk. I still recall Bishop jumping up from his chair in excitement when Jean Lipman telephoned him in early 1981. The purpose of her call was to announce the imminent sale of her country home in Cannondale, Connecticut, and the possibility that the collection of American folk art that she and her husband, Howard, had assembled might be added to the Museum's collection. Bishop's great excitement made it clear that there was something special in store for me—the opportunity not only to become acquainted with an outstanding figure in the history of our field, but to participate in the acquisition for the Museum of a collection of eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury American folk art of very substantial importance. In the months that followed, the promise of that telephone call was fully realized. First came the Howard and Jean Lipman Library—a gift of hundreds of books, catalogs, and pamphlets related to the folk and decorative arts, some of them annotated in pencil by Jean Lipman herself. The gift of the Lipman Library provided just the incentive that the Museum needed to organize a true research facility. As we discussed the transfer of her library, Jean Lipman and I began to forge a friendship that lasted until her death at the age of 88 on June 20, 1998, in Carefree,

28 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

Arizona. A person of great determination, intelligence, and energy, with little patience for quibbling or indecision, Jean Lipman had a long-standing commitment to the Museum and to the field of American folk art. At the time of her death, she was among the last of the generation of collector-scholars who gave shape to the field at midcentury. The folk art collection that came to the Museum in 1981 was not the first collection that Jean and Howard Lipman had assembled. Indeed, by 1949, the year in which Jean Lipman participated with Nina Fletcher Little, Alice Winchester, Holger Cahill, and others in a landmark seminar on folk art at the New York State Historical Association at Cooperstown, the Lipmans owned one of the more distinguished assemblages in private hands. In 1950, this collection was purchased by Stephen C. Clark Sr. for NYSHA, greatly increasing the holdings of the Cooperstown institution. It was the Lipmans' second collection of American folk art that was purchased by the Museum of American Folk Art in 1981. Under the terms of the agreement, the Museum committed to pay the Lipmans one million dollars, a staggering sum for the young institution in 1981. With the Lipmans' approval, the Museum took a bold step. The Collections Committee identified thirty-four splendid objects for formal acquisition; the Museum sold the remaining objects at auction at Sotheby's on November 14, 1981, to help make the purchase possible. The Lipman accessions remain among the most important objects in the Museum's collection to this day. In the years following the sale, the Lipmans augmented these

holdings with a serie,, of generous gifts to the Museum, principally of nineteenthcentury painted and decorated furniture. Of her varied accomplishments, Jean Lipman tended to take the most pride in her publications. Of course, she had reason for this pride. Her first book,American Primitive Painting, was published by Oxford University Press in 1942. This was followed by a host of others—twenty-six in all!—several of which remain essential for a full appreciation of the field. From 1940 to 1970, Lipman served as editor of Art in America. During her tenure, the magazine became one of the artworld's most influential periodicals. I believe that it was more receptive to serious scholarship about folk art than any generalinterest art magazine then being published. Jean and Howard Lipman shared a close and abiding relationship. They also shared an interest in contemporary art, especially American sculpture. This led to a long association with the Whitney Museum of American Art,for which Howard Lipman served as Board Chairman and Jean Lipman as Publications Director. Jean became especially close to Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, and David Smith,and helped the Whitney assemble a collection of these and other artists' works. She was immensely pleased that her book Calder's Universe saw fourteen printings. Lipman conceived two major exhibitions for the Museum of American Folk Art."Young America: A Folk-Art History"

was presented in 1986 prior to a national tour, and "Five Star Folk Art: One Hundred American Masterpieces" was presented in 1990. Lipman worked closely with the Museum's former curator, Elizabeth V. Warren, who organized these shows. Lipman also had major roles in the presentation by the Whitney of two exhibitions of great significance to the field: "The Flowering of American Folk Art," in 1976,and "American Folk Painters of Three Centuries," in 1980. Jean Lipman enjoyed her home in Carefree immensely, but remained in regular touch with the Museum. Her brief, direct, and helpful comments would arrive regularly; they demonstrated how closely connected she felt to the Museum and how aware she was of developments here. She had joined the Museum's Board of Trustees in 1965; when she retired in 1978, she remained remarkably involved as a Trustee Emerita. Jean Lipman has left a legacy of inestimable importance through her writings, her record of exhibitions, and her gifts to the Museum of American Folk Art and other institutions. It is especially appropriate, I believe, that the group that was formed last year to help the Museum develop its collection—The Jean Lipman Fellows—bears her name. Jean Lipman's death represents an immeasurable loss to the Museum of American Folk Art and to American life and culture.* Gerard C. Wertkin is director ofthe Museum ofAmerican Folk Art.

A Charming Hirshfield Enters the Collection By Stacy C. Hollander n the fall of 1996, the Museum of American Folk Art established The Jean Lipman Fellows as a major initiative to support significant acquisitions for the permanent collection through the annual purchase of a work of art. The inaugural purchase was a highly engaging early nineteenth-century needlework depicting the figure of Liberty from the Abby Wright School in South Hadley, Massachusetts. But, as evidenced by this year's purchase of a painting by the twentieth-century master Morris Hirshfield, the interests of this discerning and vigorous group of collectors, scholars, connoisseurs, and dealers embrace every aspect of the folk art field. Recently, the Museum of American Folk Art has been instrumental in focusing new critical attention on Hirshfield through two important exhibitions: "SelfTaught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology" and the companion presentation, "Perspectives on Patterning." Four Cats, dated 1941, is the first painting by this intriguing artist to enter the Museum's collection. Morris Hirshfield came to the United States from Eastern Europe at the age of eighteen, part of a huge wave of immigration from the late nineteenth century through the early years of the twentieth. Like so many other Jewish immi-

The lean Lipman Fellows, 1998

grants of this period, he found work in the garment industry, at first in a women's coat factory. Hirshfield soon opened his own coat factory with his brother, but after twelve years, they started a new company,the EZ Walk Manufacturing Company, which made women's "boudoir slippers," as Hirshfield called them. This business operated with great success until Hirshfield became ill, and then retired. In 1937, at the age of sixtyfive, Morris Hirshfield began to paint, much to the bewilderment of his wife and family. The subjects he was immediately drawn to were women, animals, and occasionally, themes from his Jewish heritage. The best record of Hirshfield's life and career as an artist was written by Hirshfield himself for Sidney Janis' 1942 book, They Taught Themselves. Janis had come upon Hirshfield's paintings a few years earlier while organizing an exhibition called "Contemporary Unknown American Painters" for The Museum of Modern Art. Upon seeing Hirshfield's Angora Cat, he immediately included work from the new artist in the exhibition. In 1941, Hirshfield was given a one-man exhibition at The Modern that included thirty paintings—all he had completed up until that time. Included in the checklist was a painting titled Mother Cat with

FOUR CATS, Morris Hirshfield 11872-19464 1941, oil on canvas, 24 x 36. Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art, gift of Maurice C. and Patricia L. Thompson and purchase with funds from the lean Lipman Fellows, 1998.5.1

Kittens,

dated 1941. It is intriguing to think that it may be the same painting purchased for the Museum by the Jean Lipman Fellows and now known as Four Cats. Between 1937 and his death in 1946, Hirshfield completed seventy-seven canvases. Women and animals continued to be his favorite subjects, and they also endure as his most important. His many years of experience in the garment industry translated visually into a sensual and tactile use of texture and pattern that animates the paintings and infuses them with seemingly unconscious sexual overtones. He often made preliminary drawings that he traced onto canvas, and sometimes he even cut patterns that could be traced and reversed. Four Catsjuxtaposes the startling whiteness of the animals against the deep red of the carpet and the green and yellow of the background. Though the animals lie in repose, they strain against an envelope barely large enough to contain them. This bubble bulges into the background, separated

only by a narrow striped seam, yet the animals cannot pierce through. The cats lie still, but the alertness in their uncannily human faces, and their coiled bodies ready to spring at the first opportunity, communicate a profound sense of incipient rebellion. The second annual meeting of the Jean Lipman Fellows was held on June 16 and was organized by co-chairmen Patrick Bell and Edwin Hild of Olde Hope Antiques and Meredith F. and Gail Wright Sirmans. It began with a visit to the stellar collection of Robert Greenberg—rich in the work of Henry Darger, William Hawkins, and Martin Ramirez— displayed in a dramatic loft space. The group then gathered at the Museum for a cocktail reception and viewing of the exhibitions "Mary Ann Willson: Artist Maid" and "Edge to Edge: Selections from Studio Art Quilt Associates," followed by presentations on the artworks being considered for purchase, and the voting. The evening concluded with a gala dinner at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center, directly across the street from the Museum.* Stacy C. Hollander is the curator of the Museum ofAmerican Folk Art.

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 29

P ,6÷

41Wir , 400 ‘41.# 4

-7 41 1

Gallery Barbara Brogdon 1611 Hwy 129 S.• Cleveland, GA. 30528 (706) 865-6345 • www.rosehipsart.com email: rosehips@stc.net

FEATURING: Jim Sudduth v Mamie Deschillie LaMer Meaders v R.A. Miller Lonnie Holley v M.C. 5c Jones Charlie Lucas v Cris Clark The Beaver and others Georgia artist Marie Elem

Louden Albert Born 1945 Collection Includes: Clementine Hunter, Don McLaws, "Artist Chuckie" Williams, Ike Morgan, J.B. Murray, Howard Finster, Mary T. Smith, B.F. Perkins, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Royal Robertson, Sam Doyle, Reginald K. Gee, James Harold Jennings, Mose Tolliver, Lonnie Holley, Tim Lewis, Burgess Dulaney, Charlie Lucas, Nellie Mae Rowe, Sarah Rakes, Leroy Almon, Sr., Sister Gertrude Morgan, Tubby Brown, S.L. Jones, Rhinestone Cowboy, Dwight Mackintosh, Clyde Jones, David Butler and Albert Louden.

CALM

CILLEY8 A

"Why the Long Face?" 24" x 31" Oil Pastel

30 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

MES

8750 Florida Blvd. Baton Rouge, LA 70815 (504) 922-9225 Fax:(504) 922-9887 Web site: www.eatel.nethoutsider

Robert Cargo

FOLK ART GALLERY Contemporary Folk Art • Haitian Spirit Flags Southern, Folk, and African-American Quilts

•,G

John Barnard. Drawings, gouache and pencil on paper, 1988. Top, left to right: Ballet, 10 x 14 inches. Untitled, 14 x 10. Bottom, left to right: Christ Neanderthal, 103/4 x 123/4. Untitled, 10 x 14. 2314 Sixth Street, Downtown, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401 • Home Phone 205-758-8884 Open weekends only and by appointment • Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 2 to 5 p.m.

MINIATURES

COMPILED BY TANYA HEINRICH

The Spanish Influence

Potter Dave

"El Alma del Pueblo: Spanish Folk Art and Its Transformation in the Americas" will be on view concurrently at the Americas Society and The Spanish Institute, both in New York City, from Sept. 18 to Dec. 31. This traveling exhibition, organized by Dr. Marion Oettinger Jr., presents the folk art of Spain and its pervasive and enduring influence on artistic expression in Latin America and Latino communities in the United States. Nearly 250 ceremonial, utilitarian, and decorative objects from the 19th and 20th centuries will be on view, including pottery, maritime folk art, votive offerings, household saints, religious sculpture, portraits, and furniture. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog. For more information, please call the Americas Society at 212/2498950 or The Spanish Institute at 212/628-0420.

'"I made this jar...': The Life and Works of the Enslaved African American Potter, Dave," the first comprehensive exhibition of the master potter's wares, is on view at the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, through Dec. 19. Dave,an unusually literate slave put to work in the potteryproducing region of Edgefield, S.C., signed, dated, and inscribed his vessels with witty poetic verse touching on themes of religion, identity, literacy, and creativity. Of the more than 50 slaves who worked in Edgefield pottery factories, only Dave is known to have signed and dated his works, some of which are among STANDING VIRGIN, artist unknown, Mexico, 18th century, polychromed wood, metal, wire, 40 12, collection of Randy and Carol linkins, San Antonio

Modernists as Influenced by the Self-Taught Works by American self-taught artists Benny Andrews, Earl Cunningham, Lawrence Lebduska, Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses, Horace Pippin, and Bill Traylor are included in a small exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City."The Direct Eye: SelfTaught Artists and Their Influence on Twentieth Century Art," on view through Oct. 18, seeks to demonstrate the influence of selftaught artists on modem and contemporary artists such as Marsden Hartley, Jacob Lawrence, Alison Saar, and Max Weber, and to question the distinctions between the two communities of artists. For more information, please call 212/879-5500.

32 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

the largest vessels made in the 19th century. The exhibition, which is accompanied by an illustrated catalog, will travel around the country. For more information, please call 803/777-7251.

FOOD STORAGE JAR WITH TWO SLAB HANDLES, Dave, Pottersville, Edgefield District, South Carolina, 1836, alkaline-glazed stoneware, 16'/8" high, collection of Bert and Jane Hunecke. Incised "Horses, mules and hogs/All our cows is in the bogs/There they shall ever stayffill the buzzards take them away/29th March 1836"

Eddie Kendrick in Arkansas "The Art of Eddie Kendrick: A Spiritual Journey," a traveling exhibition of the works of the Arkansas self-taught artist, will be on view at The Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock from Sept. 11 to Nov. 8. Organized by curator Alice Rae Yelen, the exhibition will feature 65 drawings and paintings on paper and fabric. Kendrick, a Little Rock butcher and a deeply spiritual man, derived inspiration from music, prayer, dreams, and the Bible. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a catalog, will travel to the New Orleans Museum of Art. For more information, please call 501/372-4000.

GREEN HEART-SHAPED HOUSE, Eddie Kendrick, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1991, oil paint and colored pencil on paper, 9 12", collection of Crystal Jones

VINTAGE SIDESHOW BANNERS by Jack Cripe Fred Johnson Jack Sigler Snap Wyatt

K.S. Art new location - 73 LEONARD STREET NY NY 10013 212 219 1489

A major new critical appraisal of this century's self-taught artists from the Museum of American Folk Art. Including essays by Arthur C. Danto, Maurice Berger, Gerald L. Davis, and many others, as well as 150 fine color images by more than thirty artists.

An American Anthology Foreword by Gerard C. Wertkin Introduction by Elsa Longhauser

CHRONICLE

BOOKS

WWW.CMRONICI-5800H5,CONI OR

CALL

800.722.6657

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 33

Remembering Bert... Mentor, Colleague, Visionary, Gentle Man...

THE

AMES GALLERY

Bonnie Grossman, Director 2661 Cedar Street Berkeley, California 94708 Tel: 51=45-4949 Fax: 510/45-6219

Alex A. Maldonado,San Francisco to New York in One Hour, 1969, oil on canvas and wood,211/2" x 27 ,/2" National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., and purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson 1986.65.126,01990 Smithsonian Institution

MINIA TUR ES

Expanded Showcase for International Folk Art The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, N.Mex., is celebrating the opening of the Neutrogena Wing to house the Neutrogena Collection of more than 2,500 pieces of international folk art, including textiles, ceramics, and carvings. The inaugural exhibition,"The Extraordinary in

the Ordinary," which features a selection of 200 garments,textiles, and folk art objects, is on view through March 2000 and is accompanied by a catalog of the entire Neutrogena Collection. For more information, please call 505/827-6350.

â&#x20AC;˘

of/iiktso 34 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

abitivAdAiNAIR

Folk Art Conferences The Historical Society of Early American Decoration will hold its semiannual convention and exhibition at the Marriott Hotel in Syracuse, N.Y., the weekend of Sept. 18 to 20. On view will be a special exhibition of original decorated pieces of tinware, reverse glass paintings for clocks and mirrors, and American country painted pieces. The public is welcome, and admission is free on Saturday, Sept. 19,from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. For more information, please call chairperson Mary Obrist at 315/697-7443.

FANTE WARRIOR'S FLAG, Nana Manso, Ghana, C. 1945, appliquĂŠ and embroidery on plain-weave cotton, 42 67", Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, N.Mex., Neutrogena Collection

The Folk Art Society of America's annual conference will be held Oct. 8 to 10 in Houston. Highlights of the weekend will include a tour of the exhibition "Spirited Journeys: Self-Taught Texas Artists of the Twentieth Century," on view at the University of Houston's Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery. A symposium will feature a keynote speech by curator Lynne Adele. In addition, there will be visits to an art car parade, The Menil Collection, and such notable environments as the Beer Can House of John Milkovisch and the Orange Show. For more information, please call 804/285-4532.

MINIA

TURES

Lancaster Amish Exhibition and Symposium "Amish Arts of Lancaster County" is on view at The Heritage Center Museum of Lancaster County in Lancaster, Pa., through Jan. 2, 1999. The exhibition highlights quilts, furniture, fraktur, clothing, and toys produced by and for members of the

Lancaster County Amish community. In addition to a catalog, the exhibition is accompanied by a symposium to be held Sept. 19; the panel will include textile and fraktur scholars. For more information, call 717/299-6640.

Fannie Lou Spelce 1908-1998 Preeminent self-taught artist Fannie Lou Spelce died of heart failure at her Austin, Tex., home on April 11. Motivated by her desire to revisit treasured memories and to share them with others, she created more than 300 paintings in which she recorded in painstaking detail small-town life in the early 20th century. Many of her works document once commonplace events that are now part of American history—outdoor tent revivals, quilting bees, family celebrations, and various everyday activities are among the subjects of her paintings. Though they depict specific events from the artist's life, the works evoke a collective memory that give them a wide appeal. Born in Dyer, Ark., a small town in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, on June 19, 1908, Spelce began making art toward the end of a 40-year career as a registered nurse that included supervising the operating room at Houston Methodist Hospital where Drs. Michael Debakey and Denton Cooley pioneered openheart surgery. At the age of 64 she debuted with a one-woman show at the Kennedy Galleries in New York. She continued to paint for the next 20 years, until macular degeneration caused her eyesight to fail.

Spelce's work has been included in numerous exhibitions and publications throughout the years, including Herbert W. Hemphill Jr. and Julia Weissman's book, Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists (1974). Four of her paintings are included in the traveling exhibition "Spirited Journeys"(on view at the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Aug. 22—Oct. 11, 1998). —Lynne Adele, Assistant Curator ofEducation, Jack S. Blanton Museum ofArt (formerly the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery), University of Texas at Austin

Milton W. Bond 1918 "Covered Bridge", 1997 Milton W.Bond, of Connecticut. began painting at the age of 50, and has achieved significant fame in his lifetime. His chosen medium:Reverse Painting on Glass, is a self-taught technique that has been traced back to 13th Century Venice, and practiced much by the Yugoslays and the Chinese. This "lost art" has been mastered by only a handful of artists today. Milton Bond paints active, detailed scenes, landscapes as well as seascapes, capturing historic momentsin America,often idealizing aformer way of living. His significant, charming, body of works gives us a glimpse into a world made warm, witty and memorable. This enchanting artist is an important part of the history of American Folk Art.

a0ekte Tolitheutt Catanody Onteknationd goVk (hit Since 1980 Milton Bond, Rita Hicks Davis, Mamie Deschillie, Minnie Evans, Amos Ferguson, Sybil Gibson, Haitian Art Masters, Ralph Aufder Heide, Justin McCarthy, Nikifor, Jack Savitsky, Lorenzo Scott, Fred Webster, Malcah Zeldis, and others.

Thj utppointmenE 214-992-9851 gay: 214-993-9260

10046 Conway Toad St out. .Mo. 62124

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 35

Lr E-I''H A A/J1 I? Hof ) LE"ewe. #j7A N.

you.

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Eleci SHS. Wiy lill'RON

Ginger Young Gallery Southern Self-Taught Art By appointment 919.932.6003 Works by more than four dozen artists, including: Rudolph Bostic • Raymond Coins • Howard Finster Sybil Gibson • M. C. Jones • R. A. Miller • Reginald Mitchell Sarah Rakes • Royal Robertson • Lorenzo Scott Earl Simmons James "Buddy" Snipes Jimmie Lee Sudduth

Mose Tolliver

John Henry Toney • Myrtice West

For a free video catalogue or a price list please contact: Ginger Young Gallery, 5802 Brisbane Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Phone/Fax 919.932.6003 E-mail: gingerart@aol.com Website: http://members.aol.com/gingerart2/

Hoper Brother by Willie Jinks Marker on windowshade, 36" x 48", 1998

*FOLK* ART &

ANTIQUES

Showcasing Important Americana Including:

SIGNIFICANT 18TH

19TH CENTURY

AMERICAN FURNITURE

EARLY-MID 20TH CENTURY CRAFTS

ANTIQUE FOLK ART

CONTEMPORARY

Herman Bridgers

FOLK POTTERY

Untitled Graphite Drawing on Paper Rows of figures, signed and dated 1984, 11" a 17". Artist also known as Herman Bridget. Ex-collection Robert Lynch Ex-collection NC Wesleyan University Other Bridgers' works available.

CONTEMPORARY FOLK PAINTING

Open Mon-Sat, lOarn-5pm 64 Biltmore Avenue • Asheville, North Carolina 28801 • Tel. (828) 251-1904 • Fax (828) 251-0884 AMERICAN FOLK IS A COLLABORATION OF CHARLTON BRADSHER AMERICAN ANTIQUES AND BLUE SPIRAL I, A DIVISION OF NEW MORNING LTD.

30 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

Oat Suite 27 / 1123 Zonolite Rd. / Atlanta, GA 30306 / p - 404.815.1545 / f - 404.815.1544 / email - barchgal@bellsouth.net Photo: Dilmus Hall! Untitled Figure! Wood, putty, paint / 20"h x 4"w x 7"d

AMERICAN FOLK MAR_JETRY MASTERPIECES IN WOOD By Richard Miihlberger

Richani rican folk Ani ork

Published by the Museum of American Folk Art

The first definitive, full-scale examination of the history and makers offolk marquetry in America.

240 pages 156 color plates

In this full-color, beautifully illustrated, hardbound volume, Richard Miihlberger outlines the history of marquetry, parquetry, and inlay, and expertly discusses 95 extraordinary objects. His chapters on marquetry maker Frederick Stedman Hazen, prisoners' marquetry, and marquetry as "male quilting" are especially captivating. American Folk Marquetry: Masterpieces in Wood is a perfect holiday gift and a must for any collector's library.

hardbound 9 x 101 / 2" $65.00 10% discount for Museum members

To order your copy, call the Museum's Book and Gift Shop at 212/496-2966

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AMERICANA AT AUCTION William Doyle Galleries will offer American Furniture and Decorations, including folk paintings, historical prints, painted furniture, silver and ceramics on November 18, 1998 at 10am. The sale will be on view November 14-17. For information, catalogues or a free schedule of auctions and events, please contact our Client Services Department. For consignment of items to upcoming auctions, please contact David A. Gallager. Illustrated here: Ralph Cahoon (American, 910-1982), Cattle Auction, signed R.E. Cahoon (1rjoil on board, 23 x 32 inches. To be offered November 18.

WILLIAM DOYLE GALLERIES I AUCTIONEERS & APPRAISERS 175 EAST 87TH ST I NEW YORK I NY 10128 I TEL 212-427-2730 FAX 212-369-0892 I INTERNET: WWW.DOYLEGALLERIES.COM

Gifts of Marquetry

he Hirschhorn Foundation has given the Museum of American Folk Art five outstanding examples of American folk marquetry, the first to enter the Museum's permanent collection. Marquetry is an ancient technique of ornamenting furniture or other wood surfaces with an overlay of wood veneers arranged in patterns. Color is achieved by using a variety of woods or by staining. Marquetry reached a high point in Italy in the fifteenth century when it was described as "painting in wood." During the eighteenth century, at Versailles and other royal centers, marquetry furniture was

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preferred above all other kinds, and German craftsmen led the field. Their descendants brought the technique to the United States, where it became popular after the start of the Industrial Revolution. The Hirschhorn gifts date from the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth, a period that has been dubbed "The Golden Age of American Carpentry." Marquetry stood in opposition to the new industrial processes of the nineteenth century. Machines did not aid the labor-intensive process; the marqueter used only a saw and glue to achieve his stunning results. Patience was another necessary ingredient. This craft represented a cot-

American Folk Art By Richard Miihlberger tage industry of the past. Because marquetry making required great expanses of free time in which to fit the many hours of labor needed to finish a piece, the cost exceeded what anyone could pay for it. As a result, when the art was young in Europe, only monks could afford to practice it, and so marquetry became the property of the Church. Later, and for similar economic reasons, it fell under the luxurious auspices of the royals who could afford to commission artisans. In America, marquetry was rare even in cosmopolitan centers where there was great wealth, and so those who made it always had to have means of support other than the selling of their fancy woodwork; they

lived off the land or the sea, worked as cabinetmakers, or had other ordinary jobs. Marquetry appealed to them in part because it was not cost-effective. What better gift for someone special than something that could never be afforded? Indeed, it was a gift that exceeded the modest financial means of the giver himself. He could afford to make the gift, but not to purchase it from another craftsman. Recently, five gifts have come to the Museum of American Folk Art through the generosity of The Hirschhorn Foundation. They are an elegant sideboard, two symbolic plaques, a unique tall clock, and an exceptionally exuberant cabinet.

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 41

SIDEBOARD WITH THREE DRAWERS OVER TWO CABINETS Maker unidentified Northwestern Vermont 1900-1915 Parquetry 55/ 1 4 50% 22/ 1 4"

Sideboard with Three Drawers over Two Cabinets This sideboard comes from northern Vermont,from a camp called Isle La Motte, after the largest island in Lake Champlain. Since 1882, the island had been linked to the nearby city of Burlington by a bridge and causeways, making it easily accessible. There were hunting, fishing, and recreational camps on the island and all along the shores of Lake Champlain, many of them catering to a substantial middleclass clientele. To assure an authentic atmosphere, it was a usual practice for camps to conunission local craftsmen to fabricate furniture for their lodges and guest rooms. The Isle La Motte sideboard is distinguished by its rounded and peaked backboard, radiating rhomboids on drawers and cabinet doors, the overall openness of its ornamental design, and the blond pigmentation of its woods. The maker's name has not yet been uncovered, but the piece is similar to Canadian parquetry (a form of marquetry using only straight lines) of the same period, which is around 1915.

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Masonic Plaque in the Form of a Master's Chart The year 1899 is written on the back of this expertly crafted marquetry piece; a calendar is also glued there. Printed on the calendar is "J.M. Forbush & Co.," the name of an insurance agency that was in business in Natick, Massachusetts, near Boston, from about 1882 to some time after 1905. James M. Forbush, who worked for the Internal Revenue Service before he became an insurance agent, was listed in the 1890 Natick directory as vice president of the Natick Five Cents Savings Bank. A mason, he entered Natick's Meridian Lodge in 1871, but withdrew in 1894. It is not definitely known that he was the maker of the plaque, but his is the only name associated with it. Freemasonry began in the Middle Ages when the builders of cathedrals formed secret societies. By the early seventeenth century, they were opened to men not in the building trades who were taught the secret signs and legends of masonry, and took part in initiations and other gatherings. To this day, Masonry emphasizes the education of

MASONIC PLAQUE IN THE FORM OF A MASTER'S CHART Maker unidentified Probably Natick, Massachusetts 1899 Marquetry, parquetry, printed and painted paper 183/4 31%

its members and uses symbols and rituals to impart the humanistic ideals of the fraternal order. Large paintings called Master's charts illustrated the esoteric symbolism of the organization to neophytes. By the end of the nineteenth century, lithography made it possible to produce and distribute these charts to lodges across the country. The Natick marquetry plaque was inspired by a Master's chart, but it is not of the type that would be used in a lodge. Instead, it probably was hung in a place of honor in the home of a Freemason as a sign of prestige and pride. The elaborate rites and ceremonies of Freemasonry utilize the tools of the stonemasonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the plumb, level, square, compass, chisel, and mallet, in particularâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;within a symbolic setting that reenacts the building of King Solomon's Temple and the death and resurrection of its master builder, Hiram. Tools are pictured in the right panel of the plaque along with a beehive, a symbol of industry and regeneration, and an hourglass. The plaque's central tableau represents Solomon's Temple by the arch and two

columns. Rituals were enacted on a checkered carpet, seen receding to a door that opens and closes on a small drawing of two men. Gazing down on this is the "All-seeing Eye," an emblem of the Master Mason. A piece of stone was introduced to the left middle panel, a reference to "rough ashlar." Directly below it is its corresponding "perfect ashlar." The symbol on the other side of the open Bible demonstrates the 47th problem of Euclid, that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The numbers of checks across each square demonstrate this lesson in geometry and are a reminder that the Grand Architect of the Universe made the world according to plans. The letter G, with the familiar Masonic symbol of the compass and square, is another reference to geometry. These, and the other symbols shown in the plaque, have various levels of meaning, for Masonic culture embraced not only everyday men but also those drawn from mystical circles.

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CENOTAPH TO THREE MARTYRED PRESIDENTS Maker unidentified United States After 1901 Parquetry, inlay, and photographic images printed on paper 38 31%4 13/4"

The outer frame of the plaque is a demonstration of the marquetry maker's independent vision. None of the motifs are derived from either traditional or contemporaneous frames, nor do they relate to Masonic symbolism. The side uprights resemble Crazy Quilt patterns, but the primary design source seems to be the maker's stock of handsome woods and his creative workmanship. Cenotaph to Three Martyred Presidents This plaque commemorates the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. A unique, jagged outer frame resembles aureoles that surround the bodies of saints in religious art. Considerably more downto-earth are the American flags at the peak of the frame and the many inlaid block letters that accompany the printed images of these three American presidents. Above them is written,"OUR THREE MARTYRED PRESIDENTS," and below each picture, in crowded columns, are the presidents' names (Garfield spelled without an e),dates of their births, dates when they were shot, and the dates of their deaths. The plaque uses only three kinds of wood, consistent with its simplicity and straightforwardness.

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McKinley was a popular president, and his death in 1901 brought about an unusually great outpouring of grief. Since Lincoln, presidents were being slain at the rate of about one every twenty years. Monuments across the land to McKinley's memory were more elaborate than those commemorating former national figures. Their erection seems to have been motivated as much by a desire to end the assassinations as to express sorrow at a president's passing. Although this cenotaph is not dated, it appears to be a rural expression of anguish from the period soon after McKinley's death. Needlework memorials of deaths form a strong tradition in American folk art. This is the only known memorial by a marquetry maker. Tiered Tall Clock This imitation brick tall clock makes another kind of comment on mortality. It refers to earlier designs of grandfather clocks in the scrollwork of its bonnet, but otherwise is entirely unconventional. American tall case clocks, known as grandfather clocks, were first made in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts around 1695, following the familiar form of English models of 1658 and later. They were produced in

TIERED TALL CLOCK Maker unidentified United States c. 1880 Parquetry, marquetry, and jigsaw-cut openwork 91 x 25% 14%" (including pinnacles)

The clock was built in five sections: a base, three cabinets, and a clock crowned by scrollwork inlaid into a dark background so that it appears to be openwork. The clock is "crowned" with four turned-wood pinnacles at the very top.

quantity during the eighteenth century and ceased to be made by about 1840. The form was revised around the time of the Centennial. This "brick" clock dates from around 1890. The entire case is covered in wood parquetry that imitates bricks and the cementjoints between them. This fabrication may have been an act of eccentricity on the part of the woodworker, but it may also have been intended to enhance the symbolismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he might have wished to link bricks with the notion of time and its passing, illustrated in figures on the front and sides of the stacked case. Brick is a very durable building material, as children and adults alike are reminded in the story "The Three Little Pigs," a tale that was current in the nineteenth century. In this story, only the brick house withstood the Big Bad Wolf's huffing and puffmg. The parquetry bricks are combined with large inlaid cutouts of Father Time, a warrior goddess with an hourglass on her shield, a dancing figure, and a running child who is probably Father Time's helper. The combination contrasts fleeting time with permanence.

Statue of Liberty Cabinet This elaborate cabinet with mirror combines marquetry, carved and painted wood, and applied jigsaw cutouts so intricate that they might be called wood filigree. Tidus Albrech is the maker's name as it appears on an old handlettered label with a photograph of the cabinet. Because the printing on the label is not related to German script, we might surmise that it was written by someone other than Albrech. This could explain what is likely an aberrant spelling, based on phonetics, of the name Titus with a d used in place of a t (there is no Tidus in German). We might then assume that the last name was also misspelled, and should be Albrecht. The cabinet consists of a carved and painted base and a two-door storage area with two drawers above it. The upper section, set back above the drawers, consists of a mirror with an arched top. Cutout figures, spindles, balls, and dangling carved-wood pendants support and frame the mirror, giving this unusual piece of furniture an air of celebration. Indeed, the pictorial elements of the piece are all symbolically connected to the topmost cutoutâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Statue of Libertyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and an American eagle executed in marquetry on the top surface of the cabinet. The base, which extends beyond the front and back of the cabinet, features three-dimensional, realistically painted carvings of undulating leaves and clusters of berries. Four snakes are part of the composition, their heads emerging from the leaves. The only other carved parts of the cabinet are the drawer pulls, which are shaped to look like oak leaves and acorns; they are unpainted. The sides of the cabinet are masked with cutouts of dancing women, while each cabinet door shows a design that features a mandolin and birds cut from sheets of lightcolored wood. Each dancing woman balances on one foot, her arms and hands held high, very much like dancing bacchantes from wall paintings in Herculaneum, the Roman resort town that was destroyed, with Pompeii, by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. In the early nineteenth century, there was great interest in the art that was excavated from these rich communities Roman architecture, furniture, and fashion were regarded by many as appropriate models for the new American Republic. The dancing bacchantes were first engraved in 1757 and were much copied after about 1770. Though the cabinet dates from the end of the nineteenth century and not from the period when neoclassical designs were most popular, these motifs were everywhere to be seen and copied. In the hands of Titus Albrecht, anatomical, facial, and costume details of the bacchantes were simplified, for he was interested primarily in being able to saw the overall profile out of wood in a single piece. The few details he gave to the face, body, and costume were burned into the wood in narrow lines. The mandolin panels, in contrast, are not classical in origin. The eight-string instrument, an early eighteenth-

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 45

century version of the lute, was popular mainly in southern Italy, near the legendary home of the bacchantes. The mandolins are shown with vines, flowers, and flying birds and butterflies, all of which symbolize the joy of life. Foot-powered jigsaws, which had been in use in America since the mid-1830s, experienced great advances by the early 1870s, when the Trump Brothers' "Fleetwood" scroll saw competed with the Singer sewing machine for pride of place in the American home. The jigsaw cutouts used throughout this cabinet seem to have celebrated the latest technology, while the marquetry emblem of the American eagle on the cabinet top depended on traditional techniques. The eagle, surrounded by a field of diamonds and stars, follows a familiar, traditional format. Its wings are outspread, its head is turned to one side, and it grasps an American flag, an olive branch, and three arrows. It is the only design on the cabinet that covers a horizontal plane; all the others fill vertical spaces.

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The upper portion of the cabinet is as perfectly symmetrical as the lower part. There are four pairs of identical figures, cut by a jigsaw from thin slabs of wood. In each case, one cutout is flipped over so that the pairs are presented as mirror images. There is a woman in a classical gown, standing on tiptoe to reach the branch of a tree, a nude fairy, a trumpeting woman in classical garb, and a howling dogâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a humorous insertion. Stars are incorporated into the designs, and more stars appear at the very top of the piece. There, a halo of them springs from a triangular foliate design that rises from the center of the cabinet like a Tree of Life. This circle of stars sets off a cutout figure of the Statue of Liberty. Under her feet is a crescent moon with a star in its center. The overall image is not unlike the description penned by St. John the Divine in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation: "a woman clothed with the sun," with the moon under her feet and twelve stars at her head. The moon and star is also

Detail of STATUE OF LIBERTY CABINET Marquetry is limited to the top surface of the cabinet, where an American eagle is shown against a field of diamonds and stars. The eagle is depicted as in the official design for the Great Seal of the nation since 1782: Its wings are outspread and it clutches an American flag, three arrows, and an olive branch.

Detail of STATUE OF LIBERTY CABINET The dancing bacchante, a figure borrowed from an ancient source, is symbolically linked to the Statue of Liberty at the top of the cabinet. The dancer celebrates the dedication of the monument.

design, no doubt saw them as classical dancers, joyously celebrating life or one of its special occasions. This perception of the dancing girls is more important than their actual symbolism, just as the Athena connection to the Statue of Liberty is secondary to the clear celebratory nature of the cabinet itself. Under the watchful eyes of the fairies, it combines the American eagle and the Statue of Liberty with mandolins, birds, dancers, and musicians in a paean to patriotism. Titus Albrecht went even further than that. With his filigree and dangles, he caused the cabinet itself to dance in celebration of Freedom. These wood objects were gifted before. Each one was enjoyed and carefully cared for. But this giving is the greatest one. These extraordinary examples of folk carpentry, through the Museum of American Folk Art's stewardship, now belong to everyone.*

Richard Miihlberger has written thirteen books in the lastfive years, eleven ofthem in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum ofArt. He is curator of"Masterpieces in Wood:American Folk Marquetryfrom The Hirschhorn Foundation," on view at the Museum ofAmerican Folk Artfrom October 3, 1998, to January 10, 1999, and the author ofthe accompanying exhibition catalog.

STATUE OF LIBERTY CABINET Tidus Albrech Icor Titus Albrecht) Vicinity of St. Louis, Missouri c. 1886-1890 Marquetry, carved and painted wood, and jigsaw wood cutouts 773/4 303/a 211 / 4"

a symbol of Islam, but here it is likely the symbol of the Eastern Star, the women's branch of Masonryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Albrecht may have made the cabinet for a woman who belonged to this auxiliary. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886, but her image was well known a dozen years or more before then through fund-raising efforts. The French pledged to give the statue to the United States, and the people of America took on the responsibility for the monumental base on which it would stand. In 1871, the sculptor FredericAuguste Bartholdi brought a model of the work and a completed arm of Liberty to America and toured them across the nation as a way to generate interest in the colossus. By the early 1880s, six- and twelve-inch replicas of the statue were sold to raise construction funds. Eventually, 121,000 Americans contributed to the Franco-American friendship project. The classical costumes worn by the six women who grace the cabinet seem to have been selected as a complement to Lady Liberty's costume, which is derived from ancient images of Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and the arts. Snakes were sacred to Athena, so the presence of four of them in the base of the cabinet may be part of a larger iconography scheme revolving around Lady Liberty. Early on, the statue was known as "Liberty Enlightening the World," making her the Athena of the New World. The dancing girls also have an interesting classical pedigree. They are bacchantes, revelers devoted to Bacchus, the god of the grape. Their association with Bacchus, however, was lost the day they were copied from the walls of a villa in Herculaneum, engraved, and incorporated into textiles and other forms of ornamentation. Titus Albrecht, like others who were familiar with the

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Museum director Gerard C. Wertkin, Bert Hemphill, and Julia Weissman, January 1998

By Julia Weissman

Bert Hemphill's name and mine have been linked since the publication of our book TwentiethCentury American Folk Art and Artists, which was published by E.P. Dutton in 1974 under the benign editorship of Cy Nelson, and which Bert and I, in conversation with each other, referred to simply as "The Book." 48 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

I suppose the question most frequently asked of me is just how The Book came into being and how Bert and I met. I've told that story so many times that it has become,in my mind at least, almost a clichd, a piece of folklore in the annals of American folk art. I was working for a book publishing house just a few blocks from the Museum of American Folk Art. I had been a devoted visitor to the Museum for some time, and one day in 1970 I wandered into an exhibition called "Twentieth Century Folk Art." As someone with a particular fondness for primitive and naive art, I found the show entrancing and stimulating. It was a new take on material that had never been seen as art but was art. I had by then decided to quit my job and try my luck as a freelance writer, and the show seemed to offer an exciting subject for me to investigate. I told myself it would make a wonderful book. There was a problem, however; I knew from my experience in publishing that since I was a complete unknown as an art historian and as a writer, I would have to find an authority in the field who would be willing to be my collaborator. So I called the director of the Museum, Mike Gladstone. He said my enthusiasm was gratifying but that I should talk to the curator. I called Bert, who, though he said he was flattered, said I should talk to Mary Black or Sidney Janis or even Mike Gladstone again. Each of these people insisted that I should go right back to Bert. So I tried Bert again, pleading my case by saying that everyone had declared that he was the authority on twentieth-century material, being the field's major collector. I must have been persuasive because he agreed to meet with me. I went to his house—I still remember how cautiously he poked his head out around the frame of his partially opened door to peer at me as I stood at the front of the hall that led to his apartment. I guess I looked harmless because he invited me in. The contents of his apartment, and the quantity and nature of those contents, astonished me then and never ceased to astonish me thereafter. However much I may have been intrigued and enchanted by the exhibi-

tion he had curated, I was dazzled by his collection. "Eclectic" was hardly the word to apply to it. Crowding the apartment wall to wall, floor to ceiling, it was a lesson not just on what we then called "folk art," but also of works that these days are variously called "visionary," "mediumistic," and "raw"(among other designations), and frequently gathered under the umbrella term "outsider art," an expression Bert loathed. Bert often fretted about using words like "folk" or "visionary" to describe work by untutored individuals, whether sane, eccentric, or disturbed. He wanted to call all of it simply "art." I, however, defended single-word or short-phrase definitions on the premise that they are freighted with all kinds of information: style, subject matter, era, social and political history. Say "Egyptian art," "Greek," "Renaissance," "baroque," "impressionist," "folk," and yes, "outsider," and examples of the art being referred to come to mind, along with when they were made, artists who made them, perhaps even the circumstances in which they were made, among other things. I remember coming across an article about a sort of symposium of several art "authorities" who tried to define folk art. Their conclusion was that it could not be defined, but it could be recognized. Back to the making of The Book. Bert selected the art to be featured in it. My part was the research—the interviewing of artists, dealers, and collectors (where possible—we had no travel money)—and the writing itself. We incorporated both the history of American folk art and the sociological underpinnings of the twentieth-century works. We wrote to every museum in the country, to historical societies, and to collectors and dealers throughout the country who might have or know of the kinds of art we were interested in. The response was phenomenal. It was almost as if all these sources had been waiting to be asked. While Bert was interested in the works as art, I was intrigued not only by the nature of the art but by the nature and situation of the artists, individually and collectively, and by what

Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. 1929-1998 By Tanya Heinrich

"Collet n and preservation is vital, if for nothing else, to help us understand the development of our own mores."' Bert Hemphill, 1982

erbert Waide Hemphill Jr., a trustee emeritus of the Museum of American Folk Art and a vanguard long credited with redefining the field of folk art through his collecting, writing, and curatorial efforts, died at the age of sixty-nine of heart failure at Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan on May 8. Bert, as he was known, was born in Atlantic City on January 21, 1929, to Emma Bryan Bradley Hemphill and Herbert W. Hemphill Sr., who, among other business enterprises, owned more than 2,000 wicker rolling chairs, a unique feature on the Atlantic City boardwalk and a popular rental with beachgoers. His mother had been raised by her uncle, William Clark Bradley, an entrepreneur whose fortune derived from The Coca-Cola Company, where he had served as chairman for twenty-two years. It was this backdrop of privilege amid the carnival-like atmosphere of Atlantic City that provided young Hemphill with the means to cultivate his abiding interest in Americana and objects both popular and eccentric. His collecting sensibilities emerged with the purchase of a Maryland canvasback duck decoy in 1936 at the age of seven. Often accompany-

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ing his mother on her forays into New Jersey and Pennsylvania for antiques and collectibles, young Bert began to accumulate small collections of baseball cards, shells, coins, marbles, stamps,jugs, and glass bottles. When he was ten years old, Hemphill's mother died. The boy then lived with his aunt in Columbus, Georgia,for two years, after which he returned to his father's home in Atlantic City. He studied at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and the Solebury School in New Hope,Pennsylvania, before traveling in Europe and spending a year at Bard College, where he pursued his interests in art and theater. In 1949 Hemphill moved to New York City and soon established himself among a lively group of writers, artists, dealers, and collectors. With an inheritance providing living expenses and a regular, though modest stipend for collecting, he explored shops, galleries, and museums and for several years focused on modern European and American art as well as pre-Columbian and African sculpture. But it was after 1956—galvanized by the purchase of two cigar store Indians at the ParkeBernet sale of the Haffenreffer Collection of trade figures—that he began to concentrate exclusively on nineteenthand twentieth-century American folk art. Indian Trapper and Indian Squaw, now in the collection of the National Museum of American Art, were significant because of their subtle departure from the traditional forms of the other figures offered. "I had a visual reaction to them. They had a strength and a directness the other carvings only tried to have, but they were overlooked by the art world. It was like they were just waiting for somebody to take them home and care for them."' In 1961, having established a reputable collection, Hemphill was asked to become one of six founding members of the Museum of Early American Folk Art(renamed later the Museum of American Folk Art, to reflect a broader base of interest, in 1966), and he served on the board of trustees until becoming the Museum's first curator in 1964, a post he would hold for nearly ten years. In 1962 he donated the Flag Gate to the Museum; this piece has since become one of the icons in the permanent collection and one of the most recognized works of American folk sculpture. The gate, con-

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impelled or motivated them to produce art. So I read all I could find on early American art and folk art, art by children, the psychology of creativity, primitive and early art and their relationship to the societies that produced them, the art of eccentrics or the emotionally or mentally disturbed, and the sociological history of such work. My research and my discussions about the works and the text with Bert enlarged my own view of what qualifies as a work of art, not just folk art. My own art education until then was relatively conventional, comprising as it did regular visits to the city's museums and major gal-

book with him. I said, "My name on the jacket and the title page," meaning that the project would result in my becoming established as a professional writer. As it turned out, I got a great deal more out of it: a new passion, some small amount of fame in the field, and a long friendship. I have to add that Bert didn't take me on carte blanche. He tested me by hiring me to do the text for the exhibition "The Fabric of the State," which was on view at the Museum in 1972. What I wrote satisfied him, and thus began our collaboration. As for Bert, I think that though he was known among collectors and

FLAG GATE Artist unknown Jefferson County, New York c. 1876 Polychromed wood, iron, brass 391 / 2 57 3/ 3 4" Museum of American Folk Art, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 1962.1.1

leries. My taste, though considerably expanded, was and is more conservative than Bert's. He owned and liked works I could admire for their intensity, their brashness, their "otherness," if you will, but I must admit I would have a hard time living with them. I think what made his collecting somewhat unusual was the fact Bert made no attempt to analyze the works. We found, in interviewing the artists who were living—and whom we could read about—that often what they said about themselves and their work was part of their art. So, we let the art and artists speak for themselves. Bert asked me on my first visit what I expected to get out of doing a

dealers in New York City and its environs, I would dare to say he became nationally, even internationally, known through our work on The Book. I suppose I could be accused of exaggerating the effect Bert had, but I do feel that The Book not only spread his fame and vindicated his insistence that the art and artists deserved mainstream recognition, but also stimulated and spurred collectors and dealers far beyond New York. One has only to check the ads in Folk Art magazine to verify my boast. When Bert mounted that exhibition back in 1970, there were few galleries selling American folk art, and more often than not, those that did dealt almost solely in early

American works. True, The Museum of Modem Art had once had an international exhibition of what they called "popular art"; Sidney Janis had a roster of self-taught painters whom he wrote about in 1942 in the book They Taught Themselves; Otto Kallir of the Galerie St. Etienne sponsored Grandma Moses. But the Janis Gallery's interest was in modem art and Kallir's in German expressionism. At the time The Book was published, only a few deal-

through The Book. Bert's fame even reached as far as Japan and Germany. In 1976 he was invited to bring a portion of his collection to Tokyo for exhibition at Takashimaya, Japan's most well-known department store. Telefilm Saar of Germany used The Book as the basis for the American segment of a documentary series on naive artists of the world, and it served as the basis for four films done by documentary filmmakers Allie

ers, notably Phyllis Kind in Chicago, were exhibiting the works of a few outstanding self-taught artists, such as Howard Finster, Albina Felski, and Martin Ramirez. Today there are dozens of folk art galleries throughout the United States. I think it is fair to ask if there would be an Outsider Art Fair or folk art fairs in other areas, or if so many galleries would have been inspired to feature untaught artists, were it not for Bert and the influence he exerted

Light and Irving Saraf. Bert was frequently invited to lecture; his advice was sought by collectors, curators, and scholars everywhere; and he was more than once featured in magazines like Connoisseur. Bert and I had many discussions while working together and many more in the years after we went our separate ways. Bert's pride in the success of his efforts on behalf of twentieth-century self-taught artists was not unqualified. He worried, even

CARVED COMPOTE Elijah Pierce Columbus, Ohio c. 1975 Carved and painted wood 14 13 . 4" Museum of American Folk Art, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 1990.1.8

structed around 1876 by an unknown maker and originally part of the Darling Farm in Jefferson County, New York, was possibly inspired by the celebration of the American centennial. A masterpiece that demonstrates its maker's ability to solve complicated functional, design, and aesthetic problems,it is painted on both sides and has spaces between the slats of stripes, allowing light to shine through and creating the image of a flag waving in the wind. During his tenure as the Museum's curator, Hemphill organized a series of influential exhibitions, including four under the theme "Rediscovery of Grass Roots America." Although they were controversial,"Twentieth Century Folk Art"(1970),"Macrame"(1971), "Tattoo"(1971-1972),and "Occult" 1(1973) were widely attended and received enough press attention to attract a new and enthusiastic crowd to the Museum. This exploration of the twentieth century and its departure from previous exhibition programming sparked debate and mixed reactions from the Museum's board of trustees, but also marked a stimulating turning point in the field of American folk art. "Twentieth Century Folk Art," which soon achieved landmark status for its innovative exploration of the work of self-taught artists, was the impetus for a comprehensive book, Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists, written with Julia Weissman and published in 1974 after four years of meticulous research. For Hemphill,this research served as a revelation, as the two scholars continued to discover a number of works that refuted the notion that folk art died with the birth of the camera and the advent of industrialization;"I rethought all of my ideas about folk art," he said in retrospect.' The book featured works by 145 named artists and fifty-nine anonymous artists, as well as a number of environmental pieces; it essentially provided what was to be referred to as a bible for the field, serving as a dogeared reference for many scholars and enthusiasts. In 1976 Hemphill organized "Folk Sculpture USA," a survey of 200 years of three-dimensional folk art, for The Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Again confirming the continuum of folk art expression across three centuries, the show was significant in that it made no reference to the functional or decorative appeal of individual pieces and inten-

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 51

"The apartment is my very private preserve—my own secret environment. It seems chaotic and cluttered. To most people it possesses an incomprehensible eclecticism, but I've always known that some intimate friends and a few neophyte collectors can find order and reason in the things I've gathered and in the way I display them. I enjoy noting which objects people pick out for comment on their first visit .... My home environment is a never ending waltz of sensibilities."'

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before the book was published, how turning the spotlight on the artists would affect them and their work, and how it would affect the market—the art deserved mainstream consideration, but could it retain its quality of innocence as it gets it? His worry has been, I think, justified. The kind of collector and dealer rush and escalation of prices that has developed had for Bert, as he once said, taken the fun out of it. For all that he sold as well as bought, Bert collected because it was his passion. Last fall, National Public Radio featured a short essay on this very subject. I wish Bert had been able to hear it. Its writer questioned whether bringing so much attention to this kind of art was making it too commercial, and if bringing so much notice to hitherto isolated (in the social, not physical sense) artists was not affecting their authenticity and causing various individuals to come forward and claim themselves to be folk or self-taught artists. The writer wondered if the criteria were not becoming diluted. To the end, Bert's criteria remained as rigid as they were when

he first pushed for acceptance of twentieth-century folk art. "Untaught," "self-taught," "visionary"—call it what you will, it had to qualify as art to the same degree that any art today qualifies as art. The NPR essayist wondered if the attention was affecting the artists, if a social homogenization was being created through publicity, television, and now possibly, the Internet, obliterating the individualism that is characteristic of the folk or self-taught artists. It's not likely. The desire, indeed the very need, of some individuals to express themselves in graphic or sculptural form seems to be innate, and there has yet to be a society that does not spawn its rebels in art as well as in politics. The next century will no doubt confirm Bert's faith that these people will continue to exist.* Julia Weissman is the co-author, with Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., ofTwentiethCentury American Folk Art and Artists. She has lectured on Americanfolk art at Hunter College, The New Schoolfor Social Research, and New York University.

Garin Ashworth

tionally excluded the expected figureheads, trade figures, carousel carvings, and weathervanes, primarily because they were often produced in a craft guild setting. In addition to seeking out unusual pieces at flea markets and auctions and through New York dealers, Hemphill often "discovered" artists during his extensive and carefully mapped travels throughout the country, especially in the South. He was an inveterate collector with a keen sense of the validity and aesthetic strength of works that held an innate expressive quality, and a willingness to embrace pieces that were not necessarily well crafted; he ultimately amassed nearly 4,000 objects."Fortunately I had a predilection for the off-beat, because my acquisition budget has always been restricted by a notable lack of funds. This limit caused me to buy things that had not yet been 'seen' or which had been seen and rejected by others."4 The artworks amassed in his duplex on East 30th Street in Manhattan were hung in what began as a salon style and soon evolved into an implosion of evocative images. Every wall, floor, and surface was engulfed by a rotating and carefully placed assemblage of objects, leaving little room for anything other than study and contemplation. Hemphill was rarely concerned with the parameters associated with conventional folk art collecting and intuitively satisfied his compulsion to acquire art by filling the collection with both "crown jewels" and "study pieces" alike. He seamlessly juxtaposed the more idiosyncratic works of the twentieth century with traditional portraits, mourning pictures, theorems, frakturs, shop signs, and weathervanes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

DOG Bill Traylor Montgomery, Alabama 1939-1942 Pencil, crayon, and poster paint on paper 18¼ 26/ 1 2" Museum of American Folk Art, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 1990.1.1

From the Permanent Collection he Museum of American Folk Art's permanent collection includes 32 pieces donated by Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., including a 19th-century gameboard table; a Shaker clothespin; a cane by H.A. Brown; 20thcentury carvings by Felipe Benito Archuleta, Miles Burkholder Carpenter, Josephus Farmer, and Elijah Pierce; three watercolors attributed to Lawrence W. Ladd (the "Utica Artist"); a portrait by William Matthew Prior; a painting on tin by Mary T. Smith; works on paper by Martin Ramirez and Bill Traylor; sculptures by George T. Lopez and Nellie Mae Rowe;two quilted pillows by Sarah Mary Taylor; a drake decoy by Steve Ward and Lemuel Ward; two tattoo flash drawings; and the c. 1876 Flag Gate that has become an icon in the Museum's collection.

Museum of American Folk Art Exhibitions Organized by Curator Herbert W.Hemphill Jr. CLOTHESPIN Unidentified Shaker maker Pleasant Hill, Kentucky c. 1900 Wood, metal band 5/ 1 4 11 / 2 'I? Museum of American Folk Art, gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., 1985.24.3

1962 Initial Loan Exhibition Time & Life Exhibition Center, New York City (Mary Allis, co-curator) 10/5-11/18

1970 The Tinker and his Dam (Mary Black,co-curator) 1/15-3/1

1967 American Folk Art Permanent Collection and Promised Gifts,Part II (Mary Black,co-curator) 6/20-7/9

J.F. Huge: Rediscovery South Street Seaport Twentieth Century Folk Art Museum, New York City (part one of"Rediscovery of 3/17-4/22 Grass Roots America") 9/9-11/29 The Metal of the State 5/1-7/1 Carving for Commerce (Frederick Fried, co-curator) Make a Joyful Noise 12/8/70-2/20/71 11/26/73-1/6/74

Folk Artists in the City: The Painters and Carvers of Greater New York (Mary Black,co-curator) 10/30-12/10 1968 The Art of the Decoy (Mary Black,co-curator) 4/22-6/30; 8/15-10/9 Permanent Collection and Promised Gifts,Part III (Mary Black,co-curator) 4/22-6/30; 8/15-10/9

Collector's Choice,Part II (M.J. Gladstone, co-curator) 5/12-6/5

1971 Grandpa Wiener 3/2-4/18 Macrame (part two of "Rediscovery of Grass Roots America") 4/27-6/30; 8/7-9/30

Tattoo(part three of "Rediscovery of Grass Roots America") The Plenty of Pennsylvania (Frederick Fried, co-curator) (Mary Black,co-curator) 10/4/71-1/9/72 12/9/68-4/13/69 1972 A Retrospective Look: 1969 Folk Art from the Collector's Choice, Part I Permanent Collection 6/7-7/13 of the Museum 1/17-2/29 The Fabric of the State 5/22-7/10; 9/5-9/24 Hail to the Chief 10/3-11/12 The Spirit of Christmas Past 11/28/72-1/2/73

1973 Occult(part four of "Rediscovery of Grass Roots America") (William Harris, co-curator) 1/9-4/15

1974 The Edith Barenholtz Folk Art Collection of Nineteenth Century Weathervanes and Trade Signs 1/28-4/7 1985 Consultant to A Time to Reap: Late Blooming Folk Artists Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J., (Barbara Wahl Kaufman and Didi Barrett, curators) 11/9-12/7 1987 Life in the New World: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art Sotheby's, New York City 7/1-8/31

Artists, dealers, collectors, and scholars from all over the country gravitated to his apartment to experience firsthand what was reverently referred to as the "Hemphill thing." He was generous with his knowledge and his sources, and fostered a great and enduring passion for the works of self-taught artists and the vast landscape in which much was and is yet to be uncovered. His impact on a new generation of collectors and dealers has been profound. Between 1973 and 1988, portions of Hemphill's collection traveled to twenty-three venues, introducing cities large and small to American folk art; in 1976 it toured Japan as part of a Bicentennial celebration. In 1986 the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., acquired more than 400 pieces from Hemphill's collection through a $1.4 million purchase and partial gift arrangement. Until his death, Hemphill was a frequent lecturer at the Museum of American Folk Art's Folk Art Institute and an active and generous member of the Museum's Collections Committee; each time an object was presented, he would invariably say "I have one of those at home,I'll bring it in." He is survived by his nephew J. Marshall Hemphill of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.* Author's Note: Much of the biographical information was culled from Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum ofAmerican Art, by Linda Roscoe Hartigan (Washington,D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1990).

Tanya Heinrich is the associate editor of Folk Art.

NOTES 1 "The Hemphill Perspectiveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;A View From A Bridge," a dialogue by Michael D. Hall and Herbert W.Hemphill Jr., in American Folk Art: The Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Collection (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1981), p. 14. 2 Ibid., p. 15. 3 Ibid., p. 10. 4 Ibid., p. 8. 5 Ibid., p. 12.

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L',M MUM kl?1:f 1014MI

The Mystery of J. Brown By Elizabeth V. Warren Reverse of Maxcy Fisher portrait

or many years, the search for the skilled artist who signed the name J. Brown to a handful of portraits of Massachusetts subjects between 1806 and 1808 has been one of the most difficult in the field of folk art scholarship. Paintings by Brown are included in the collections of such notable institutions as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown, and have been featured in a number of major museum exhibitions over the past forty years. Yet despite his prominence in the folk art pantheon, Brown's common (and incomplete) name and itinerant ways made it impossible for researchers to find any concrete biographical information about this talented artist or to discover what became of him after he signed his last dated painting in March 1808.

F MAXCY FISHER 11785-18651 Franklin, Massachusetts 1808 Oil on canvas 32/ 1 4 26" Private collection Signed verso: James Brown Pinxt/March 17th AD 1808 Brimfield/Mr. Maxcy Fisher. k. 22/ALF Born August 12th 1785/Franklin

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In 1996 the sale of the portrait of Maxey Fisher of Franklin, Massachusetts, at Skinner's auction gallery in Bolton, Massachusetts,' gave new hope to those still looking for the elusive Brown. The painting—stylistically very similar to three other known portraits of young men by Brown—was signed with the full name "James Brown" and the inscription includes the same block-print letters that appear on all the other signed paintings. Furthermore, for the first time the artist also gave what was presumably his location—"Brimfield"—as well as that of his sitter. It seemed logical, therefore, to renew the search for Brown in Brimfield, Massachusetts, a town located in the south central portion of the state and not far from the towns of Franklin and Medway, where he painted at least four portraits. But even with this important new information, finding the James Brown—the one who created the seven signed and seven firmly attributed portraits—continues to be frustrating. Only one James Brown of Brimfield could be found in the Massachusetts census records, and he first appears in the 1820 census, twelve years after the painting of Maxcy Fisher. This is probably the same James Brown who is mentioned in a history of the town as a saddle and harness maker. He was born in Brimfield in 1790 and settled there permanently in 1813, after an apprenticeship in Canajoharie, New York. He died in Brimfield in 1859.2 No other James Brown of the right age could be located in either town or census records. However, the Genealogical Record of John Brown (1755-1809)and His Descendants, which details the family history of one Jonathan Brown, who moved from Salem or Beverly, Massachusetts, to Brimfield in about 1739, does mention that James, the youngest child of Jonathan Brown Jr., was born in 1786.3 Unfortunately, no further mention is made of that James Brown. Yet the renewed search for Brown has not been entirely fruitless. In reviewing the data on Brown's subjects, some new information about his sitters' lives and their paintings has come to light, some previously published errors have been corrected, and new avenues of research have been identified. It is hoped that by disseminating this information, more portraits by this obviously talented artist will be found and new leads to the ultimate whereabouts of the mysterious Mr. Brown will be uncovered. Brown's subjects were located in an area that stretches from Williamstown, in the far northwest corner of Massachusetts, to Plymouth, in the far eastern portion of the state. This is not only a very wide range for an artist to travel during this era, but based on the inscriptions Brown included on the backs of a number of the paintings, he apparently made the journey from one end of the state to the other in the first few months of 1808. The dated portraits also show that he worked very quickly, finishing at least three portraits—Maxcy Fisher, Williams Emmons,4

50 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

and Erastus Emmons—between February 27 and some time in March 1808. The earliest identified portraits, and the only ones dated 1806, are those of General Samuel and Hannah Douglas Sloan' of Williamstown. Sloan was a prominent man in the town, and is mentioned often in histories of the area. A blacksmith, farmer, tavernkeeper, and officer in the local militia, he was also a very successful land speculator and the builder of "the finest house in Berkshire County."6 In the mid-nineteenth century, the house, which Sloan had built in 1801 directly across the road from West College, the first Williams College building, was purchased by the school; it still stands, and is used today as the home of the president of the college. Samuel Sloan was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1740, and then moved to Canaan, Connecticut,just south of the Massachusetts border. About 1765, he moved with his family to South Williamstown, where they were among the earliest settlers. An intriguing entry in the Gazeteer of Berkshire County, Massachusetts 1725-1885 states that three lots of the first settlement in Williamstown were

HANNAH DOUGLAS SLOAN (1748-1829) Williamstown, Massachusetts 1806 Oil on canvas 30 25" Private collection Signed verso: I. Brown

GENERAL SAMUEL SLOAN (1740-1813) Williamstown, Massachusetts 1806 Oil on canvas 30 25" Private collection Signed, dated, and inscribed verso: Gen Sloan/if 65/AD 18064, Brown Pinxt

drawn by Lieutenant Samuel Brown.' Unfortunately, there are no further mentions of the Brown family in town histories. Another possible Brown connection was noted by Colleen Cowles Heslip in the catalog that accompanied the 1990 exhibition "Between the Rivers: Itinerant Painters from the Connecticut to the Hudson," held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Research for that exhibition revealed that two of Hannah Douglas Sloan's sisters married members of the Brown family of Pittstown, New York, just across the state line from Williamstown.' But again, there is no evidence to date to indicate any relationship between that Brown family and the painter J. Brown. The portraits of the Sloans have descended in the family of the original sitters. Recent correspondence with the present owners has provided fascinating information about the paintings that was revealed during their conservation at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in 1966. Until that time, the paintings were unattributed. During restoration, which included relining the canvases, it was discovered that General Sloan's portrait was signed on the back: "Gen

Sloan/k. 65/AD 1806/J. Brown Pinxt." Mrs. Sloan's painting was also signed on the back: "J. Brown." Furthermore, before the paintings were restored, both of the Sloans were seated in what appeared to be simple bow-backed chairs upholstered in a red fabric. While the works were being cleaned, however, it became clear that the upholstery was a later addition to the portraitsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;perhaps an attempt to update the pictures or to show increased prosperity. Whatever the reason for the change, the Sloans originally were painted seated in the black bow-back Windsor chairs that they are seen in today.9 Although the Sloan portraits are the earliest known examples of Brown's work, they clearly are not the amateurish first attempts of an untried artist. Many of the techniques and elements that define his style are already confidently used in these paintings, indicating that there may be undiscovered earlier examples still to be found. As can be seen in these and the other paintings illustrated here, Brown's portraits generally are characterized by the use of a thin red lead ground layer that often penetrates to the reverse of the original primary support. A graytinted oil paint was frequently used over the ground layer. In general, Brown applied his paints thinly, especially in the facial areas, where the gray undercoat often shows through and tends to make his subjects look older and perhaps harder-edged than they actually may have appeared in life. Brown's handling of faces has been deemed "startlingly realistic,"0 although his lack of skill with the rest of the human anatomy also has been noted: "Other parts of his sitters' bodies and the backgrounds received less attention and were more loosely painted." This is particularly apparent in the artist's most ambitious paintings, the portraits of the Hall family of Cheshire, Massachusetts, painted in January 1808. Like Samuel Sloan, Calvin Hall was a military man and entrepreneur in Berkshire County. In fact, Sloan's probate papers indicate that Hall owed Sloan's estate $23, evidence that at least two of Brown's subjects were well known to each other." In 1804, Hall built a house in Cheshire, where he already operated a tavern with his son-in-law, John Leland. The tavern was popular enough to be mentioned in an 1885 history of the town: "Some can remember the square bar in the south room, with its high picketed gate, and can recall the ancient characters on the wall of the room above, occupied once by a society of Free and Accepted Masons."In 1808, Hall and Leland built a store adjacent to the tavern, and in 1812 they added a glass factory. The Halls moved to Deerfield, New York(now North Utica), in 1816, where they established a new glass factory.'4 There are many mentions of Browns in the municipal records and town history of Cheshire, including a number who were Masons and would have visited the room

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above Calvin Hall's tavern, and one Captain Brown who Laura Hall was born on May 31, 1787, in Cheshire, built a house in 1797 on top of the same hill where Hall Massachusetts. In 1810, she married Ambrose Kasson, an built his house.'5 Again, however, no evidence has been attorney from a nearby town. In 1816, when her parents found to link this or any other of the Browns named in the moved from Cheshire to Deerfield, New York, Laura and Cheshire histories with the artist J. Brown. her husband moved to Syracuse, New York, where Ambrose The portraits of Calvin Hall and his wife, Mercy directed a seminary. By 1833, the Kassons had also settled Barnes Hall, are the only known paintings by Brown to in Deerfield, where they operated a farm with their seven incorporate both a vaguely defined interior and a landscape children. Laura Hall Kasson died on July 24, 1869.18 vista with three-quarter-length likenesses. With their seated To date, no portrait of Laura Hall Kasson's sister, subjects, these portraits, especially the depiction of Calvin Jemimah Hall Leland, has been located. As Jemimah was Hall in his Windsor armchair, suggest that Brown was already married and would not have been living at home familiar with the work of the renowned painter Ralph Earl, when Brown painted her parents and sister, it is possible or at least with the style of portrait painting that Earl that no portrait of Jemimah was commissioned. The brought back to America in 1785, after his politically impressive, over-life-size painting of the unmarried Laura, necessitated sojourn in England. In the last fifteen years of however, may have been ordered by her father as a symbol the eighteenth century, Earl painted many portraits of pros- of his growing prosperity.'9 perous men and women either seated or standing beside a The portrait of Laura Hall has often been cited as a window open to the surrounding landscape. Often, the possible link between Brown and Ammi Phillips, who, in scenes outside the window were meaningful to the sitters and included their homes and/or businesses. In his 1798 portraits of Captain Elijah Dewey and Mrs. Mary Schenck Dewey, painted in Bennington, Vermont (just over the border from Williamstown), Earl seated the captain in front of a red drapery and clearly showed his tavern through the open window.16 Similarly, it is believed that Calvin Hall's tavern is the prominent building in the twilit landscape of Cheshire that is visible through the open window in his portrait.'7 It is interesting to note that both Captain and Mrs. Dewey, as well as many of Earl's other subjects, are shown seated in the same type of red upholstered side chair as the Sloans once were. Earl also signed many of his paintings "R. Earl Pinxt," with the date, the same style of signature that J. Brown used for all but one of his currently known signed portraits. While Brown may have adapted Earl's compositional style for the portraits of the Halls, he obviously did not have the latter artist's skill at rendering anatomy. Mr. Hall does not seem to fit too contrast to Brown, left a large body of work and is perhaps comfortably in his Windsor chair, and Mrs. Hall appears the best-known folk painter of the nineteenth century. In about to fall out of her painted side chair. Brown compen- their 1968 catalog, Ammi Phillips, Portrait Painter sated for this deficiency by lavishing care on details of cos- 1788-1865, Barbara and Lawrence Holdridge theorized that tume and decoration. Mrs. Hall's bonnet, dress, and sewing Phillips actually may have been a student of Brown's, and have all been enhanced by the technique of impasto, used that the "new spirit" that prevails in Phillips' portraits of his to simulate lace. Equal attention has been paid to the men's Border period (1812-1819) is directly attributable to clothing, as is seen by the way the light falls on Mr. Hall's Brown's instruction or influence. As Mary Black states in buttons and the careful manner with which his white lace the introduction to that catalog: "Brown is a painter whose ruffle has been reproduced. intense realism approaches the sting of satire. The poses of Brown's difficulty with depicting the human body is his sitters, his bright warm palette, and his fanatical attention also clear in the painting of Laura Hall(Kasson), one of the to detail are all traits which, if adapted by a young painter Halls' two daughters. This portrait is Brown's largest work, searching for his own idiom would result in just the changes his only known full-length portrait, and the elongated form that took place between Phillips' signed works in 1811 and and the odd splaying of her feet show that the artist clearly the Border portraits."13 She also points out that the changes was not comfortable with this large-scale composition. in Phillips' style first appear in portraits of subjects who Again, however, her white dress is beautifully painted with were residents of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where elegant lace details and her face shows a definite family Brown worked, or of neighboring towns in New York or resemblance to her mother's. Both women also have intri- Vermont, increasing the likelihood that Phillips was familiar cately drawn matching corkscrew curls framing their faces. either with Brown himself or with his paintings?'

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MRS. CALVIN HALL 'MERCY BARNES) Cheshire, Massachusetts 1808 Oil on canvas 34'â&#x20AC;˘30/ 1 2" Signed verso: I. Brown, Pinxt. Jan. 21.'), 1808 Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1957.100.2

CALVIN HALL 11759-18331 Cheshire, Massachusetts 1808 Oil on canvas 34 â&#x20AC;˘ 30" Not signed Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1957.100.1

LAURA HALL (1787-1869) Cheshire, Massachusetts 1808 Oil on canvas 72 36" Not signed New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, N-10.52

Certainly, Phillips' full-length portraits of Harriet Leavens and Harriet Campbell, both painted around 1815, can be seen as interpretations of the portrait of Laura Hall. All three subjects are shown standing, facing forward but with their bodies turned slightly away from the viewer. With her outstretched right hand, Laura Hall is holding the back of a Windsor side chair while the two Harriets clasp stylish parasols. Similarly, Laura is holding a book in her left hand and the other two girls hold reticules in theirs. The accessories are different, but the poses are exactly the same. Phillips, however, has avoided the problem of the splayed feet by showing only one girlish foot sticking out from under the long empire-style dresses of his subjects. Presumably, Brown painted Laura Hall in January 1808, the same month that he completed the signed portrait of her mother, or shortly thereafter. By the end of February of that year he was in Franklin, Massachusetts, approximately two-thirds of the way across the state from the Berkshires, and engaged in painting the portraits of the Emmons brothers. Williams and Erastus Emmons were the youngest of the six children of the Reverend Nathanael Emmons, D.D., and his second wife, Martha Williams. Reverend Emmons' ministry at the First Congregational Church in Franklin lasted fifty-four years; according to local histories, he was one of the most beloved and respected men in town." Although in their portraits they appear almost as twins, Williams, the fifth child of Nathanael and Martha, and Erastus, the sixth, were born three years apart and could not have led more different lives. The honorable Williams Emmons graduated from Brown University in 1805. In 1809, he opened a law office in Augusta, Maine, where he practiced until 1836. He was a member of the Maine state legislature in 1833 and 1834, served as senator for Kennebec County in 1834 and 1835, and was appointed Judge of Probate in 1841, an office he held until 1848." According to an Emmons family genealogy published in 1905, Williams was "a studious and well read lawyer; was of pleasing address, honorable and upright in practice; a worthy citizen, and a kind, considerate man,of pure unblemished character."24 In contrast, Erastus was apparently of dissolute character. Although the town history mentions only that he was a "major, aide-de-camp to General Crane" and that he "died young," the family genealogy paints a more complete picture by quoting from his father's funeral oration of January 1823: "He has lived, blinded by sin, and wholly given over to the vanities of the world, and his voice, which once sounded pleasant in your ears, now calls in accents of woe from the dread abyss, for you to be wiser and better than he was, and to seize hold of life eternal." The portraits of both Emmons brothers were once owned by Nina Fletcher Little, who found them still hanging in the parsonage in Medway, Massachusetts, that had been home to Williams and Erastus' sister, Mary, and her husband, Reverend Jacob Ide, D.D. It was Mrs. Little who attributed the unsigned portrait of Clarissa Partridge Ide Childs to Brown, based both on stylistic and technical similarities to the signed works and a supposed relationship to Reverend Ide through Clarissa's first husband, Gregory Ide.

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However, while there is no reason to doubt the attribution to Brown on aesthetic grounds, no evidence has been found to explain the exact relationship (if any) between Reverend Jacob Ide and Gregory Ide. Clarissa Partridge Ide Childs, the daughter of Moses and Rachel Thayer Partridge, was born in Medway on June 14, 1775. In January 1795, she married Gregory Ide, also of Medway." After Gregory Ide died in 1798, Clarissa married Asa Childs of nearby Upton." In 1813, the Childs family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Childs became a shoe manufacturer; Clarissa died there in 1849." James Brown probably painted the portraits of Williams and Erastus Emmons, Clarissa Childs, and Maxey Fisher within months, if not weeks, of each other in the late winter of 1808. Like the Emmons brothers, Maxey Fisher was also part of a well-known Franldin family. A history of the town written in 1879 noted that "it was once said that there were more Fishers than Ponds in Franklin."" Maxey was born on August 12, 1785, in Franklin, and he lived there until he died in 1865. He married twice and had twelve children, including a daughter that he named Martha Emmons, indicating a possible family relationship with the Emmons brothers." He is recorded in the 1820 Massachusetts census as "Capt. Maxcy Fisher," but no military service is mentioned in the town history. The portraits of Williams and Erastus Emmons, Clarissa Childs, Maxcy Fisher, as well as those of Obadiah and Lavinia Latham and Henry Turner, are enclosed in painted oval spandrels, a stylistic device that points to the possible influence of the itinerant artist William Jennys (active 1793-1807), who also traveled in Massachusetts in the early nineteenth century, and is known to have painted at least one portrait in Williamstown in 1796." Like Brown's young men, Jennys' subjects are often shown half- or threequarter length, with their arms hanging down and their hands cropped. This format, combined with the use of spandrels, has been traced to mezzotint portraiture, and may also indicate the influence of Richard Jennys, another painter of the period who is believed to have been related to William Jennys and who is known to have done mezzotint likenesses." In addition to using similar formats, it has been noted that Brown and William Jennys also shared a fondness for realistic faces—Jennys' work has even been called "brutally frank," and "stark and unflattering'34—and it has been theorized that the realism seen in Brown's paintings might be a result of exposure to Jennys or to his work. Either is possible, as Jennys was a prolific and widely traveled artist, and is known to have given painting lessons in the area north of Hartford, Connecticut—and therefore in the vicinity of Brimfield, Massachusetts—in the first years of the nineteenth century. But however hard-edged Brown's portraits may appear, his depictions are nowhere near as harsh as those painted by William Jennys. Clarissa Childs, for example, seems only a bit weary, as if the sewing she holds has tired her eyes. And Brown's young men—the Emmons brothers, Maxcy Fisher, Henry Turner—may have serious countenances, but none is as dour or frankly unattractive as a number of Jennys' subjects can be described.

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Most of Brown's subjects, including all who have been painted within a pale brown oval spandrel, have been highlighted by a lightening of the reddish brown background around the head and shoulders of the sitters. This technique helps focus attention on the subject's face and, like the use of the oval spandrels, shows that Brown was familiar with the sophisticated academic artistic conventions of the period. Unlike the portraits previously discussed, the paintings of Henry Turner and Obadiah and Lavinia Latham, while enclosed in spandrels, are only shown half-length, and have been painted on smaller canvases. Perhaps Brown found that he could work even faster using this format, and that he could charge a reduced fee for these less imposing portraits, increasing the number of potential clients. And although the names of these subjects are known, no genealogical information has as yet been discovered about them. The portrait of Henry Turner is signed "J. Brown" in the artist's standard block-style lettering on the lower right front of the canvas. On the reverse of the canvas, the words "Henry Turner Plymouth" have been written in script; this may have been a later addition. There was a Henry Turner who was born in Plymouth in the late eighteenth century and who could be the subject of this portrait," but he could not be found in census records and may have moved from Plymouth by the time he would have been old enough to be listed by name as the head of a household. The portraits of the Lathams are unsigned and have been attributed to Brown based on stylistic similarities, including format, coloration, details of clothing, accessories, and hairstyles, as well as faces that look so much like a number of Brown's other subjects that they could be those of close relatives. As yet, despite his distinctive name, no Obadiah Latham has been located in Massachusetts census records for 1800, 1810, or 1820, or in the histories of any of the other towns where Brown's subjects are known to have resided. The final pair of portraits believed to have been painted by James Brown are the likenesses of Caleb Humiston Turner and Anna Hopkins Turner. This pair, again attributed based on stylistic similarities to Brown's signed works, are known today only from black-and-white photographs of the paintings shown in a Sotheby Parke Bernet auction catalog from 1978." In the catalog reproductions, the subjects, shown half-length and not enclosed in spandrels, appear to have the same highlighting around the head and shoulders as many of the other examples of Brown's work. The poses are slightly different from those in the other paintings, as Mr. Turner sits on a Windsor chair with his over-large hand draped over the back and Mrs. Turner appears to be standing and holding a parasol. Again, however, there is a long list of details that correspond with Brown's signed works, from the way Mr. Turner's white ruffled stock is painted to Mrs. Turner's corkscrew curls. But it is the strong faces with their piercing eyes and slightly world-weary countenances that finally make the attribution to Brown so likely. It is tantalizing to speculate about whether these Turners could have been related to Henry Turner, whose portrait was signed. They likely would not have been old enough in the 1808 period to have been the

MRS. ASA CHILDS (CLARISSA PARTRIDGE IDE)(1775-1849) Probably Upton or Medway, Massachusetts c. 1808 Oil on canvas 27/ 1 4 x 23/ 1 2" Not signed Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1958.100.1

parents of Henry Turner, but Henry may have been a younger brother or cousin to Caleb. If a relationship were discovered, it would, of course, make the attribution of the paintings to Brown much stronger. It is unfortunate that these paintings remain unlocated, as a complete family genealogy accompanied the pair when they were sold at auction. Like Obadiah Latham, Caleb Humiston Turner could not be found in Massachusetts census records or in local histories and genealogies for those towns where Brown was known to have painted. However, an intriguing note in the auction catalog in which the Turners were pictured suggests that perhaps the search for the ultimate whereabouts of J. Brown should focus on Connecticut rather than Massachusetts. According to the catalog, Caleb Humiston Turner was born on October 28, 1776, in Waterbury, Connecticut, and Anna Hopkins

Turner was born November 16, 1776, in Litchfield. One of the previous owners of the portraits, perhaps a descendant, was also from Waterbury, indicating that the couple may have lived out their lives in that part of Connecticut. This information is especially interesting when considered in light of an advertisement found by researcher Nancy Kelly in the Hartford Courant of February 1, 1809, stating that "Mr. Brown Portrait and Miniature Painter. . . will open a drawing school in Hartford where he will instruct in Figures, Landscape and Flower painting. ... Mr. Brown also paints portraits, and miniatures, on canvas or ivory; also paints miniatures on paper, price 5 dollars."" The date of this advertisement makes it a more plausible clue to the whereabouts of J. Brown than other published references. For example, Kelly also found an advertisement in the Salem, Massachusetts, Gazette in March 1820 for a

"Mr. Brown" who was a profile cutter." Groce and Wallace's standard work, The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860," includes three "J. Brown" references: a profilist in Salem in 1802; a watercolor portrait painter in Salem in 1810; and a miniaturist in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1835. Finally, one J. Brown advertised portrait painting in miniature in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1813.40 Unfortunately, there has not yet been any direct link established between any of these Browns and J. Brown, painter of oil portraits in Massachusetts in 1806 and 1808. In detailing the mystery of J. Brown, it is important to mention a few of the many portraits that have been misattributed to him in the past—or attributed with insufficient evidence—and that are still found in some of the standard reference works in the field.4'For example, it was long believed that the painting of Clarissa Taylor Ingersoll, once in the collection of Stewart E. Gregory, was signed on the reverse: "Nov. 1803, Aged 31/Painted by J. Brown."42 Although depicted half-length and in an oval spandrel, the painting of Mrs. Ingersoll does not stylistically appear to be by the same hand as the other signed portraits by J. Brown. There are none of the hard edges that are frequently found in Brown's likenesses and no elongation of the anatomy, another characteristic of his work. When the painting was relined, it was discovered that the signature had been copied incorrectly: the "J" was actually a "U."43 Mrs. Ingersoll is now known to have been painted by Uriah Brown (active 1803-1808), a contemporary of J. Brown's who worked first in Connecticut and then in Salem, Massachusetts, where he advertised himself as a painter of faces in 1805, before moving to New York City." A second portrait of a lady that has often been attributed to J. Brown is the Unidentified Woman, also known as the Lady in a Chippendale Chair,formerly in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Wiltshire III. In the 1977 catalog that accompanied a touring exhibition of the Wiltshire Collection, this painting was unattributed, although reference was made to a resemblance to the portraits of General and Mrs. Sloan.45 By the time Robert Bishop's popular book Folk Painters ofAmerica was published in 1979, the portrait had gained an attribution—the caption simply noted "by J. Brown."46 When the painting was auctioned off at Sotheby's in April 1981, the attribution to J. Brown stood, although it was accompanied by an asterisk, indicating that while the painting was "ascribed to the named artist, no unqualified statement as to authorship is made or intended...."47 In fact, the attribution to Brown is probably tenuous at best. While there may be some aesthetic similarities to Brown's work—the over-large hand, sideways glance of the eyes, and wide mouth with thin lips all recall the portrait of Clarissa Childs—the overall composition and especially the coloration are different enough to call the attribution into question. Most of the similarities between this painting and Brown's signed works can be accounted for by the fact that they were probably painted at about the same time by artists with similar training and exposure to artistic conventions of the period. Finally, there is the portrait of Mrs. Richard Keese, formerly in the collection of Herbert W. Hemphill Jr. and

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now owned by the National Museum of American Art. It has been reproduced a number of times in catalogs of the Hemphill Collection, including American Folk Art: The Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Collection, a publication that accompanied a touring exhibition organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum in 1981. Hemphill originally bought this work thinking that it might have been painted by Ammi Phillips. The attribution was changed to Brown when it was realized that the painting was not a Phil1ips.48 Again, however, except for stylistic similarities that are probably more representative of the period than of any artist's individual traits, there is very little that relates this portrait to Brown's known works. Furthermore, Mrs. Keese is said to have been the wife of the founder of Keeseville, New York,49 a town in the far north of the state and across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vermont. While it is possible that Brown could have traveled so far from his home base in Massachusetts, it is unlikely, especially since no other portraits attributed to him have been found in this area. Clearly, the mystery of J. Brown remains unsolved. Tantalizing cluesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a first name, possible family relationships, a new state to search inâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;indicate only that there is still much research to be done. But the fortunate discovery of the signed painting of Maxey Fisher lends impetus to the search for Brown,and fortifies the belief that there are more works by James Brown waiting to be identified. Hopefully, one of these will provide the final clue that will solve the puzzle of the life and disappearance of this talented artist.* Elizabeth V. Warren is the consulting curator ofthe Museum of American Folk Art. She is the co-author, with Sharon L Eisenstat, ofGlorious American Quilts: The Quilt Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art(Penguin Studio, 1996).

NOTES 1 Sale 1717,June 9, 1996,lot 115, p. 47. 2 Historical Celebration ofthe Town ofBrimfield, Hampden County, Mass., Wednesday, October 11,1876 with the Historical Address ofRev. Charles M. Hyde, D.D. (Springfield, Mass.: The Clark W.Bryan Company, 1879), p. 211. 3 H.C. Baker, Genealogical Record ofJohn Brown (1755-1809) and His Descendants (St. Paul, Minn., n.d.), p. 11. 4 Although published many times as "William," the correct first name of this subject is "Williams," the same as his mother's maiden name. 5 The descendants of this pair spell the name Sloane with the e. However, primary documents, including gravestones and probate records, spell the name Sloan without the final e. As this was the spelling at the time the portraits were painted, it will be used here. 6 Robert R.R. Brooks, editor, Williamstown: The First Two Hundred Years 1753-1953(Williamstown, Mass.: The McClelland Press, 1953), p. 25. 7 Hamilton Child, Gazeteer ofBerkshire County, Mass. 1725-1885(Syracuse, N.Y.: Hamilton Child, 1885), p. 395. 8 Colleen Cowles Heslip, Between the Rivers: Itinerant Painters from the Connecticut to the Hudson (Williamstown, Mass.: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1990), p. 50. 9 Letter from the present owners to the author, February 12, 1998. 10 Beatrix T. Rumford, general editor, American Folk Portraits: Paintings and Drawingsfrom the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center(Boston: New York Graphic Society in Association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1981), p. 70.

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11 Ibid. 12 Heslip, op. cit., p. 50. 13 Mrs. Ellen M.Raynor and Mrs. Emma L. Petticlerc, History of the Town of Cheshire, Berkshire County, Mass.(Holyoke, Mass., and New York: Clark W.Bryan and Company, 1885), p. 91. 14 Rumford, op. cit., p. 70. 15 Raynor and Petticlerc, op. cit., p. 96. 16 These paintings are illustrated in Elizabeth Manldn Kornhauser, Ralph Earl: The Face ofthe Young Republic(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 222. 17 Rumford, op. cit., p. 70. 18 Paul S. D'Ambrosio and Charlotte M.Emans,Folk Art's Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association(Cooperstown, N.Y.: New York State Historical Association, 1987), p. 50. 19 Heslip, O.cit., p. 50. 20 Mary Black,"Introduction" in Ammi Phillips: Portrait Painter, 1788-1865(New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1968), p. 12. 21 Ibid. 22 Mortimer Blake, A History ofthe Town ofFranklin, Mass., from its Settlement to the Completion ofits First Century, 2nd March, 1878(Franklin, Mass., 1879), pp. 84-86. 23 Ibid., pp. 151-152. 24 Edward Neville Emmons, The Emmons Family Genealogy (Syracuse, N.Y.: 1905), p. 33. 25 Blake, op. cit., p. 86. 26 Emmons,op. cit., p. 34. 27 Vital Records ofMedway, Mass., to the Year 1850(Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1905), pp. 82,97. 28 E.O. Jameson, The Biographical Sketches ofProminent Persons and the Genealogical Records ofMany Early and Other Families in Medway, Mass. 1713-1886(Milles, Mass.: 1886), p. 176. 29 Rumford, op. cit., p. 70. 30 Blake, op. cit., p. 241. 31 Ibid., pp. 246-247. 32 Heslip, op. cit., p. 20. 33 Rumford, op. cit., p. 129. 34 Ibid. 35 Information provided by Joyce Hill. 36 Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York,"Fine Americana" sale 4076, February 3, 1978, lot 688. 37 Quoted in Heslip, op. cit., p. 48. 38 Ibid. 39 George C. Groce and David H. Wallace, The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary ofArtists in America, 1564-1860 (New Haven,Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957), p. 86. 40 J. Russell Harper,Early Painters and Engravers in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), p.47. The author would like to thank Michael and Suzanne Payne for this information. 41 The portraits of Clarissa Taylor Ingersoll, Lady in a Chippendale Chair, and Mrs. Richard Keese have been viewed only in reproduction, and have not been examined by the author in person. 42 Rumford, op. cit., p. 69. 43 Information provided by Nancy Kelly. 44 Mary Black,"Between the Rivers: The Tradition of Itinerant Painting Arrives," in Heslip, Between the Rivers, p. 44. 45 Richard B. Woodward,American Folk Painting: Selections from the Collection ofMr. and Mrs. William E. Wiltshire III (Richmond, Va.: Virginia Museum, 1977), p. 37. 46 Robert Bishop, Folk Painters ofAmerica(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979), p. 28. 47 Sotheby's, New York,"American Folk Paintings and Watercolors," sale 4593M, April 30, 1981, lot 50. 48 Information provided by Herbert W. Hemphill Jr. 49 American Folk Art: The Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Collection (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1981), p. 49.

WILLIAMS EMMONS 11784-18551 Franklin, Massachusetts 1808 Oil on canvas 30 24" Collection of Randy and Nancy Root Signed verso: I. Brown Pinxt./ Feb 27th AD. 1808/W-E/X-23

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PleyOrin

Belief The Flustering Truth of

What I saw in most of those faces was contempt and patronage for the show folks, who got an easy living by exploiting their oddities, or doing tricks with snakes or fire. They wanted us; they needed us to mix a little leaven in their doughy lives, but they did not like us. We were outsiders, holiday people, untrustworthy and the money they spent to see us was foolish money. But how much they revealed as they stared! â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Robertson Davies, World of Wonders

By Michael McCabe

Sideshow banner line by Fred G. Johnson, c. 1960-1970

S STRANGEST 13.113 ES

Sideshow Banner Art he townsfolk who strolled the dusty carnival midways of America during the first half of the twentieth century queued up at the base of sideshow fronts in search of spectacles that could shake up their predictable, rural lives. Seductive sideshow banners lured the hesitant public closer to the "bally," the stage or platform where the tickets to the show were sold by a "talker." The alarming canvases illustrated a trade in human hardship that simultaneously intrigued and repelled the curious in a game that is out of step with the mainstream tastes of today, or at least parceled out to the world of the afternoon television talk show.

The success of the sideshow business depended on the artistic skill and imagination of banner artists, who concocted alluring images of the performers on display. In reality, the acts of the sideshow were more often than not a dismal disappointment that completely contradicted their banner messages. Customers were usually treated to a disinterested oddity who sat in an oppressively hot tent and stared back with a deadpan expression. The banners that hung outside guaranteed that the charade would work without too many dissatisfied customers. Their images were the blending of a highly functional formula of image, word, and color enlivened with a captivating psychological undercurrent of strangeness, danger, beauty, and sensuality— the irresistible equation that was needed to lure the "tip," the curious passersby and potential thrillseekers, into the tent. Banner artists such as David "Snap" Wyatt, Jack Cripe, Fred Johnson, and Neiman Eisman played off the rural audience's need to believe and escape. Their art confirmed the worst: that beyond the humble existence of rural America—framed by endless cornfields, backbreaking labor, and a predictable social system— regular folk were a part of a bigger mysterious world that in the end was best experienced in small strange doses. The huge canvases skillfully but simply explored both images of nature gone wrong and fraudulent, handmade mutations using a warm, human flair that underscored the ambiguity of the message. In a disturbing game of gratification, banner art operated like all good advertising as it stroked the inner desires and fears of the public. Banner images cut to the core of a person's subconscious bewilderment about the nature of life, and show owners intuitively capitalized on this inner realm of confusion and fear, knowing that it made the "marks" ripe for the picking. Savvy banner artists used a gentle, persuasive charm to encourage people to spend a little money and explore their darker side. Once you bought your ticket and

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walked into the tent, your expectations of being treated to an expanded world of possibilities surged. The banners sold these expectations with a balance of humor,fun, and emotional trauma. During the 1920s and thirties, sideshows flourished in isolated rural America. Communication was limited at best, and distances between people and places seemed greater at that time than they do now. Traveling circuses and their sideshows were messengers of a sort, bringing exotic news from afar to regions intrigued by the alien outside world. Every summer, people in agricultural regions looked forward to the thrill of the exotic outsider that descended on their communities for a few days; the appearance of traveling shows rounded out the season of hard work under the sun. Timid, Godfearing people bristled under the

huge banners that flirted with them playfully in the warm breeze. If you take a sideshow front—that's about 100 feet long. So,figuring that the average person takes 3-foot steps—that means that it takes 33 steps and some odd paces to walk by a sideshow front. That means that between the sound of the grind tape and the visuals of the banners, you've got 33 steps out of somebody's life to convince them that they want to see this thing. Whatever it is! And here you have this kaleidoscope of various figures and situations and hopefully out of that whole montage there's something that's going to capture their imagination. Hopefully they'll stop halfway down the line where the ticket booth is and feel compelled to want to

go in and see the show. So,everything in my mind has to be geared to itself, stand up on its own feet, and scream at somebody that they must come in and see the show. —Johnny Meah,preeminent banner artist, sideshow performer, and historian' The outdoor entertainment industry of traveling circuses and sideshows, which reached its peak in the late 1950s, was the result of many years of gradual success and expansion. Following the Civil War, scores of independent showmen capitalized on public enthusiasm about traveling circuses, creating humble sideshows with their horse-drawn wagons. Most showmen did not travel blind but relied on a small periodical, The New York Clipper, that listed popular theater dates, boxing matches, outdoor shows, picnics, and fairs. Every spring, these hardy entrepreneurs pored over county maps in search of the most profitable routes. Early shows were very modest and consisted of simple acts like a trained domesticated animal. Better shows usually boasted a living freak of nature, a den • of snakes, or magic acts. • Examples of deception ▪ included showmen displaying misshapen forays into taxidermy as mythical examples of nature and shaving the faces of domesticated bears and dressing the confused animals in bonnets, gloves, and gowns, then "selling" the transformed creatures as "Pig-Faced Ladies," with mixed success. Most traveling shows had pictorial banners that hung on poles around the acts. Tickets were usually sold out front by the talker. This style of advertising was first used by roaming balladeers and managers of animal menageries of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, where comic singers recited sagas as they pointed to illustrations of the lyrics with a pole. During the 1860s, show entrepreneur Joseph Cushing organized several attractions and combined them under one tent, increasing

MEDICAL DISCOVERY OF THE AGE—OLD SQUAW SNAKE OIL G.M. Caldwell United States C. 1900-1920s Paint on canvas 96 120" Collection of Jim Secret°, courtesy of The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

OH MY! BUT SHE IS FAT— POSITIVELY ALIVE Snap Wyatt Tampa 1950s Paint on canvas 120 . 120" Collection of Jim Secreto, courtesy of The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

md)

f7.

POSITIVELY ALIV

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 67

the efficiency of the show format. P.T. Barnum's successful dime museum of oddities, the American Museum in New York City, took to the rails after a devastating fire in 1868. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 encouraged Barnum and other showmen to try their luck on a larger scale, outside the urban setting. In 1893 the term "ballyhoo" was coined to describe the pitch that a talker would use on the bally stage to entice customers inside.' Toward the end of the nineteenth century, after the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the full-scale carnival industry of outdoor entertainment coalesced into its more familiar form, consisting of the front end of the fair, where the rides and main shows were located, and the riskier back end, where "sideshows" of curiosities and freaks of nature were isolated.

There was a lot of sideshows roaming around the country once. At one time there were about 150 sideshows. You would pick up The Billboard and there was always ads,"Acts Wanted for Sideshow. Acts Wanted for Sideshow," and they could pick up The Blockhead and that was an extra sideshow act. Every carnival nearly had one. I saw a fellow years and years ago doing it, and he had a little nail like this and I said,"Good God! I can do better than that." So I got me a nail and a hammer and an ice pick and I got up there. —Melvin Burkhart, Human Blockhead, sideshow performer' Hundreds of circus sideshows traversed the expanse of America during the first half of the twentieth century. The brightly painted canvas tents that

the hoax of it all with a gasp and a chuckle. The actual challenge for the tip was expressed in the purchase of the ticket and not in actually entering the tent. The commitment to the virtual reality of the banner was the point of no return, not the viewing of the show. Back in the '30s Grandma, Grand-dad, Mom and Dad and the kids all went to the carnival. Of course you had to see the sideshow! It went along with the popcorn and the lemonade. That's what you did! The world of the sideshow explored the world of strangeness and weird people with deformities—sexuality. Whether you want to admit it or not, humans have a morbid curiosity about themselves. —James Taylor, Shocked and Amazed

MIDGET AND THE MONSTER Johnny Meah Weekiwachee, Florida c. 1960-1970 Paint on canvas 1571 / 2 125/ 1 2" Collection of Tern Horowitz

Brightly painted banners became the device used by sideshow promoters to lure the marks away from the safe front end. Over time, sideshow banner fronts expanded to include multiple banner lines or strings of banners that were sometimes two banners high and supported by ropes and poles. During the 1920s and thirties, a full-color, eight-by-tenfoot canvas banner would sell for twelve to fifteen dollars.

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held the fat and lean, the tattooed and misshapen, stood in the sun like secret passageways to alternative realities. People who dared to believe the audacity of the banner messages and enter the tent were rewarded for their bravery. The attractions were rarely as shocking as their banner descriptions claimed, and the typical anticlimax of the show became a subconscious relief: The mark who had braved the unknown eventually celebrated in

The series of events on a sideshow front changed very little over the years. A disoriented crowd who happened upon the show front were slowly coerced to surrender some of their money in a time-tested game of suggestion that was directed by the talker. A few tease acts were paraded out onto the stage where, gesturing to the images on the surrounding banners, the talker elaborated on the show that would unfold inside the tent. In

BLOCKHEAD Jack Cripe Tampa c. 1960-1970 Paint on canvas 144 108" Collection of Jim Secreto, courtesy of The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

RUBBER SKIN MAW ALLIGATOR GIRL Snap Wyatt Tampa c. 1950s Paint on canvas 246 104" Collection of Karl Wirsum

1904 a new arrangement known as a "ten-in-one," in which ten independent acts were organized under one tent, was invented by showman Walter K. Sibley. Each act was separated by curtains that were opened and closed in succession as the "freaks" performed. After the last act, the crowd was encouraged to enter the annex, or "blow-off," where for an additional small price they were treated to the most outrageous act of all. The most popular blow-off act was a hermaphrodite, who was known in the carnival trade as a Half and Half. Oddities who did not perform in the ten-in-one walked through the crowd selling "pitch cards" of the acts. Each card usually had an endearing photo of a curiosity on the front and a brief explanation or statement on the back describing something about the performer's life. Eighty-five percent of our audience did not come to Coney Island to see the sideshow. They are walking around, looking for something to do and they see the banners and walk inside. The image on the banner works hand in hand with the demonstration out front on the bally. That is actually an exact science that was worked out decades ago—you don't vary from it. The whole ten-in-one is an intricate structural form with specific ways of doing and saying things. The banners are part of it. People continue to respond to a painted sideshow banner and show much the same as in the past. You don't have to speak English to enjoy a sideshow—every few minutes someone eats fire or hammers anal!into their head. It's visual and very visceral—whether you understand the jokes or not. That's how the banners work. —Dick Zigun, director, Sideshows by the Seashore, Coney Island, New York5 As carnival managers discovered the extent of their audiences' errant appetites, they expanded their existing ten-in-ones. The demand for painted banners exploded during the first decade of the twentieth century, as carnival managers scrambled to satisfy their audiences. In 1906, the E.J. Hayden Company of Brooklyn

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supplied banners for seven full circuses and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The Wild West Show boasted 23 separate attractions, including snake charmers, Moss Haired I adies, tattooed people, a three-legged lady, and The Blue Man, whose skin had turned a disturbing shade of blue after a prolonged diet of silver nitrate. The archetypal funland of Coney Island in New York City attracted literally millions of people every season and was a natural setting for sideshows. Algernon W. Millard and John Bulsterbaum opened their banner-supply business across the street from Coney Island's Luna Park in 1912. Influential banner painter Danny Cassola, who painted in a distinct, detailed style, joined their firm in 1915. The banners of Millard and Bulsterbaum Tent and Awning were some of the first to employ the bright orange or red border color scheme as a way to draw a crowd from a distance. They also cut small V-shaped slits in their banners to accommodate the occasional seaside gust of wind. Danny Cassola is one of my favorite artists; he was the last guy that painted in Coney Island for Millard and Bulsterbaum into the 1950s. He moonlighted operating the Wonder wheel. I was a big fan of his work— I like his wet blends. He was a little beyond what was happening at the time. Danny's banners did not always have rings in the corners. Everything at Coney was sans rings—they'd just tack them up and they'd rehash 'em. Sidell & Rosen had the two sideshows there. If they had an act like Martin Lorallo—The Man With The Revolving Head—that had worn itself out, they would simply retitle the same act. If it was Dicky the Penguin Boy for the first part of the season—he would suddenly become Walla Walla the Kangaroo Boy. Same guy, different banner. —Johnny Meah The 1911 catalog for the Driver Brothers' United States Tent and Awning Company of Chicago included show fronts for vaudeville, minstrel, and exotic dancer shows. During the 1920s, H.L. Cummins and

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Neiman Eisman became notable artists in the company's stable of banner painters. Eisman in particular is known for a style that ingeniously transformed the basics of color and form into vivid compositions. In Kansas City, the banner company Baker and Lockwood used an assortment of freelance artists to create banner art for their region of the country. Early banner-painting techniques were classical and schooled compared to the typical style of later years. By the 1930s, banner artists had moved away from a labor-intensive

to readjust their strategies for success. W.F. and Charles G. Driver, who had opened and closed three different canvas companies during the troubled period, were forced to dismantle their Chicago firm. Charles Driver became a partner in a Chicago company that would become one of the titans of the field—the 0. Henry Tent and Awning Company—and lured United's premier banner painter, Fred Johnson, to his new venture. Johnson, who is recognized as one of the art's masters, started painting after the Depression, at the age of fourteen. He is known for

look in order to keep pace with the demand of the expanding ten-in-one format. Rendering and the modeling of form became generalized, and a black outline emerged as a pictorial device that economically focused the image and highlighted the central figure. A scroll with the performer's name appeared at the top, along with "bullets" in the lower right and left corners of the canvas that usually encircled the words "ALIVE" or "WHY?" Drapery curtain motifs and references to potted vegetation, borrowed from stage productions of the nineteenth-century dime museum, serenely capped off the standardization of the "banner look." The instability of the Depression forced many in the canvas trade

skillful color blends, and his painting technique was closely guarded—like most banner painters, Johnson protected what he knew. His personal recipe for paint used a blend of boiled linseed oil, benzene, and Dutch Boy white lead paint. He painted on wet canvas, working on as many as six banners simultaneously. David "Snap" Wyatt maintained his studio on 15th Street in Coney Island. He had attended Cooper Union in Manhattan and worked for the scenic company Messmore & Damon, where he mastered all aspects of the scenic art trade, including papier-mâché. His nickname was borrowed from sign-painting slang: painters hungry for work were said to

DUCKS WITH 4 WINGS Fred G. Johnson Chicago c. 1950s Paint on canvas 68 >< 95" Collection of Carl Hammer Gallery, Inc., Chicago

"snap" a sign. Wyatt's style is characterized by a subtle human dignity and warmth projecting from his figures. He never lost sight of the sympathetic element to the sideshow game. Unlike Johnson, Wyatt did not paint on wet canvas. He describes his process as follows: "First the canvas is stretched on a frame, then it is drawn in with charcoal on the end of a long bamboo pole. This way you can get it drawn standing back 10 or 15 feet .... When the sketch on the canvas is finished it is laid in with the paint, all colors going to their place. I do not wet the canvas before painting. My formula is, oil colors containing enough water are painted on and go on much as whipped cream . .'"

HOWARD THE HUMAN LOBSTER Neiman Eisman Chicago c. 1940s-1950s Paint on canvas 8 10' Collection of Joe Petro HI

On a carnival midway you have a mere matter of seconds to catch someone's attention. So the way it was done was with someone out front talking and the banners. They had to be huge,loud, and gaudy to get people's attention and get the point across without a whole lot of lettering or a whole lot of clutter in the picture. You'd have a central character of focus with some sort of light-colored or non-distracting background with the most exciting title up there. Usually, there was a bulletâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the circle with "Born Alive." The bullet was a catchphrase to accentuate the weirdness or bizarreness of the show. So you'd look up at the banner and say,"My God,I got to go see this!" â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Mark Frierson, banner painter' Following World War II, the banner trade moved south to the winter quarters of the carnival industry in Tampa,

where Wyatt and Johnson teamed up. In 1945 the Jack Sigler Art Service of Chicago opened in Tampa, employing Bobby Wicks and Jack Cripe, both of whom supplemented their painting careers by working as tattoo artists. Banner entrepreneur Peter Hennen maintained a stable of banner painters in Tampa that featured skilled painter Johnny Meah. He believes that banners were successful as advertising because they took something that in reality was not that interesting and enlivened the possibilities by adding some mystery and glitz. For Meah, the banners were the prettiest part of the sideshow. These days, carnival banners have surrendered to their modern replacement of metal-sided show trucks, which Meah paints every spring for independent showmen preparing for their new season. He also continues to paint canvas banners, but the trade has shifted to collectors who,in Meah's words,"are after a little piece of romance from the past." Today, the tempting world of the circus sideshow has been eclipsed by high-tech $100 million theme parks that satisfy jostled customers mostly on a physical plane. The craftier, lowtech, psychological realm of banner art has faded as a result of new attitudes about entertainment and human disability. The last traveling circus sideshow, The Clyde Beatty Circus, rolled up its banners and broke down the big top for good in 1994.* Author's Note: The guidance and generosity of the following people is greatly appreciated: David Brown, curator, and Elizabeth Oppen, director of communications, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Mark Frierson, sideshow banners, artifacts, props available, http://www. netropolis.net/frierson; Johnny Meah; Joe Petro III, sideshow banner posters available, http://www.sideshowart.com; James Taylor, editor, Shocked and Amazed; and Dick Zigun, director, Sideshows by the Seashore, Coney Island. Michael McCabe is a cultural anthropologist who recently wrote New York City Tattoo: The Oral History of an Urban Art (Hardy Marks Publications, 1997). His article "Flash and Flashbacks: The

Enduring Art ofTattoo" appeared in the Summer 1994 issue ofFolk Art. NOTES 1 As in many insulated communities,carnival people developed their own lingo over the years. A "talker" is the pitchman responsible for coaxing a wary public inside the sideshow tent. The commonly used term "barker" is considered derogatory within the carnival community. 2 Conversation with the author, January 17, 1998. Johnny Meah is a revered sideshow banner artist who started in his craft more than forty years ago and continues to paint independently today. He worked with all the greats and represents one of the last links to the classic days of banner art. 3 Joe McKennon,A Pictorial History of the American Carnival, vol. 1 (Sarasota, Fla.: Carnival Publishers, 1971), p. 23. According to James Taylor in James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed On and Offthe Midway, vol. 1(1995), p. 61,"ballyhoo" derives from the Arabic term Dehalla hoon, which was introduced at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago by Middle Eastern fakirs, contortionists, and other performers as a call to come gather around the performance stage. 4 Quoted in James Taylor,"The Anatomical Wonder," James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed On and Offthe Midway, vol. 3 (1996), p. 12. Taylor is the editor and publisher of this journal, the only publication devoted completely to the history of the sideshow. 5 Conversation with the author, January 1998. Many consider Sideshows by the Seashore to be the last traditional ten-inone show in America. 6 Quoted in Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward,Fairground Art: The Art Forms of Travelling Fairs, Carousels and Carnival Midways(New York: Abbeville Press, 1981), p. 243. 7 Conversation with the author, January 13, 1998. Mark Frierson is one of the last of the banner painters who learned his trade from being immersed in the sideshow world. His banners are now featured in gallery settings as well as on the midway.

The following books are available at the Museum of American Folk Art Book and Gift Shop. For mail order, please call 212/496-2966. Freak Show: Sideshow Banner Art, Carl Hammer and Gideon Bosker, Chronicle Books, 1996,96 pages, paperback,$14.95 Freaks, Geeks & Strange Girls: Sideshow Banners ofthe Great American Midway, Lisa Stone,ed., Hardy Marks Publications, 1995, 169 pages, hardcover,$30

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 71

Slotin Folk Art Auction The A. Everette James Collection Currently Housed at the National Civil Rights Museum & St. James Place Museum

k** A Fine Selection of Works from the Prestigious Collection of Felipe Archuleta - Large Leopard

â&#x20AC;˘ 600 Lots of Impor ant

Chuck and Jan Rosenak

Self-Taught Art, Outsider Art, Southern Folk Pottery, Folk Erotic, Anonymous, 20th Century Folk Art . . . Sam Doyle Howard Finster Earl Cunningham Leroy Person Matte Lou O'Kelley Steve Ashby Mary T Smith L Lebduska Justin McCarthy Clementine Hunter David Butler Nellie Mae Rowe Inez Walker Lanier Meaders Dilmus Hall S.L. Jones William Golding William Dawson Daniel Pressley Eddie Arning

Victor Gatto Jimmy Lee Sudduth Mose Tolliver Jesse Aaron Raymond Coins B.F. Perkins Henry Speller McKendree Long Carl McKenzie Leslie Payne Old Ironsides Pry Uncle Pete Dragac J B Murry Emily Lunde Sybil Gibson Purvis Young Charlie Lucas Columbus McGriff Vernon Burwell & 100's More!!!

Elijah Pierce - 1940's

Slotin Folk Art Auction Auction: Sat. Er Sun., Nov. 14 EY 15, 10am Preview: Friday, Nov. 13, 5-9pm North Atlanta Trade Center • 1-85 8- Indian Tr. Rd. Exit 38

Sister Gertrude Morgan, -Angels," 17" x 15"

Slotin Folk Art Auction Catalog Fully-Illustrated, Many Color Photos - $25 5967 Blackberry Ln. Buford, GA 30518 • GAL #2864 770 932-1000 • Fax 770 932-0506 • slotin@netdepot.com

LOTS OF FOLKS ART

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For a list of available artists, photos or an appointment: 212.825 9295 26 Beaver Street, NYC, NY 10004

74 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

self-taught intuitive visionary outsider art brut

january 22 - 24 friday noon - 8pm

saturday llam - 7pm

admission $12

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sunday llam - 6pm

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preview january 21, 6pm - 9pm information: 212.777.5218

symposium: uncommon artists VII

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information: 212.977.7170

the puck building lafayette Et houston streets, new york city

"The Outsider Art Fair... is a fixture of the New York art season" -The New York Times

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WILTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY CELEBRATION OF AMERICAN CRAFTSMANSHIP November 14-15, 1998 Wilton High School Field House Wilton, Connecticut WILTON,the acclaimed

venue for the finest in collector-quality traditional and

contemporary folk art and hand crafted furniture, supports the talented artisans of today who are keeping alive the folk crafts of the past. This exciting show features the work of 150 artists-craftsmen who are creating objects for the home, unique gifts and holiday specialties, handsomely presented. Comprehensive in its offerings, with quality as its keynote, it continues to be the most impressive show of its type in the nation. Managed by Marilyn Gould

*** EARLY BUYING: SATURDAY 8-10 AM,$20 PER PERSON. A unique opportunity to take advantage of wholesale ordering or retail buying before crowds fill the floor.

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• Metro North Railroad: To Cannondale Station

Wilton Historical Society, 249 Danbury Road,Wilton, Conn. (203) 762-7257

RECENT WORK

JEF STEINGREBE BRADFORD, NH 603 938 2748

CARVED WOOD FRUIT COMPOTE, MOUNTED ON WOODEN PLAQUE, 36" TALL

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The Antiques Dealers'Association ofAmerica, Inc. invites you to 1998's most exciting new event

THE ADA HISTORIC DEERFIELD ANTIQUES SHOW DEERFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH, 11AM-7PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11TH, 12 NOON-5PM FOR INFORMATION CALL GRACE FRIARY: 413-774-5581

78 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

THE NEW YORK

TRIBAL ANTIQUES SHOW AMERICAN INDIAN

AFRICAN

ASIAN

OCEANIC ART OF THE AMERICAS AMERICAN FOLK ART

PARTIAL EXHIBITOR LIST Alaska on Madison, NY All Of Us Americans, MD Steven G. Alpert, TX Ames Gallery, CA Ancient Art Of The New World, NY Michael Andrews, CA Appleby International Arts, CA Arte Textil, CA Arte Y Ritual, Spain L'Asie Exotique, CA Les Arts de L'Atlas, France Peter Baker, Canada Joan Barist Primitive Art, NY Keith C. Barton, NM Bead Castle, CA David Bernstein Pre-Columbian Art, NY James Blackmon, CA Peter Boyd, IN Chinalai Tribal Antiques Ltd., NY C.M.G. Books And Art, Canada Conlon Siegal Galleries, NM Conru Primitive Art, UK Joel Cooner Gallery, TX Dennis G. Crow Ltd., CA Taylor A. Dale, NM Dimondstein Tribal Arts, CA Bruce Frank, NY Gallery DeRoche, CA Diane Hall Textiles, CA Wayne Heathcote, UK Paul Hughes, UK Hurst Gallery, MA Insulinde Indonesian Arts, CA Jewel Of The Lotus, AZ Jewels, CA Stephen Johnson, UT Mark A. Johnson, CA Leonard Kalina Fine Arts, CA Kamol, WA Kelter-Malce, NY Lewis/Wara Gallery, WA Lost Nation, IL Davide Manfredi, Italy Alan Marcuson, UK Mariposa Ethnic Tribal Art, NY R.A. Mead, CA Andres Moraga Gallery, CA Robert Morris, CA Thomas Murray, CA Judith Small Nash, NY Noir D'Ivoire, France Redquarters, CA Eric Robertson, NY David F. Rosenthal, CA Shawlwalla, CA Merton Simpson Gallery, NY Stendahl Galleries, CA Tambaran Gallery, NY Throckmorton Fine Art Inc., NY Touba Art Gallery, Senegal Traders Of The Lost Arts, NM Valluet-Ferrandin, France Vanuxen, France James Willis Tribal Art, CA Yunus Gallery, FL All objects vetted for quality and authenticity

PHOTO COURTESY OF GALERIE SIERMOL PARIS

Benefiting The American Museum of Asmat Art; The Museum of Culture and Progress in Agats, Irian Jaya; Humanitarian Relief for the people of Irian Jaya. Tickets $75 per person Preview Information 612.292.8830

CASKEY-LEES PO BOX 1409 TOPANGA,CA 90290 310.455.2886 FAX 310.455.1951 EMAIL caskeylees@earthlink.net

ALICE J. HOFFMAN

MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART COLLECTION Gallery Partners Ramirez tie

Representing over 300 years ofAmerican design,from the late 1600s to the present, the Museum ofAmerican Folk Art CollectionTM brings within reach ofthe public the very best ofthe past to be enjoyedfor generations to come. New Directions The Museum welcomes its newest licensee: * Galloon. Welcome back! Galison is once again creating notecards for the Museum. Available early next year, ten tasty blank cards and envelopes, each with a recipe on the back, feature exquisite Amish quilts from the Museum's permanent collection. "New Recipes from Quilt Country"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a feast for the eyes and palate! News from Museum Licensees Share our legacy; look for new products from our family of licensees, featuring unique designs inspired by objects from the Museum's collection. * American Pacific Enterprises. Cover Up! Six new designs from the Museum's easyto-care-for bedcover series are about to be featured on QVC. The resounding success of the Museum of American Folk Art CollectionTm/QVC Hour this spring resulted in a new show scheduled for the fall. Please contact us for the time and date. We look forward to hearing which designs are your favorites. * Gallery Partners. Wearable art! Two outstanding works of art, Train, by Martin Ramirez, and Figure and Construction with Blue Border, by Bill Traylor, provided the inspiration for two new products from the Museum's tie and scarf collection by Gallery

80 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

Partners. Designed to capture the essence of Ramirez's drawings, the 100% silk tie features a network of lines creating extraordinary patterning in combination with openings and tunnels; it is available in blue and brown. The 100% silk oblong scarf, a wonderful tribute to Traylor, is at once whimsical and eloquent in designâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;figures appear full of life, ready to step out of the frame. Special Event

On the first day of the 18th Annual International Licensing and Merchandising Conference, Exposition, and Annual Meeting, held in June at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, a feature article about the Museum of American Folk Art Collection,TM "Down-home licensing," appeared in Show Daily, a special supplement to License! The Magazine ofLicensing Worldwide. Contact Alice J. Hoffman, Director of Licensing, at 212/977-7170 for a copy. Dear Customer

Your purchase of Museumlicensed products directly benefits the exhibition and educational activities of the Museum. Thank you for participating in the Museum's continuing efforts to celebrate the style, craft, and tradition of American folk art. If you have any questions or comments regarding the Museum of American Folk Art Collection,TM please contact us at 212/977-7170.

Gallery Partners Traylor scarf

Family of Licensees Abbeville Press(212/888-1969)gift wrap book with gift tags and quilt note cube.* American Pacific Enterprises (415/7821250)quilts, shams, and pillows. Carvin Folk Art Designs,Inc.(212/755-6474) gold-plated and enameled jewelry.* Concord Miniatures (800/888-0936) 1"-scale furniture and accessories.* Danforth Pewterers,Ltd.(800/2223142) pewter jewelry, keyrings, and frames.* The Echo Design Group,Inc.(212/6868771) scarves.* Enesco Corporation (800/436-3726)decorative home giftware collection.* Galison (212/354-8840) boxed notecards.* Gallery Partners (718/797-2547) scarves and ties.* Graphique de France (800/444-1464) note cards.* Hermitage des Artistes(212/243-1007)tramp art objects.* Imperial Wallcoverings,Inc.(216/464-3700) wallpaper and borders. The Lane Company, Inc., including Lane/Venture and Lane Upholstery (804/369-5641) furniture (case goods, wicker, and upholstered furniture) and minichests. Limited Addition (800/268-9724) decorative accessories.* Manticore Products, Inc.(312/595-9800) screensavers, mousepads, and coasters.* Mary Myers Studio (800/8299603) nutcrackers and nodders.* Sullins House(219/495-2252) peg-hook wall plaques; gift, desk, and vanity boxes; decorative mirrors, and fire and dummy boards.* Syratech Corporation (617/561-2200) holiday and decorative home accessories. Takashimaya Company,Ltd.(212/350-0550) home furnishings and decorative accessories (available only in Japan). Tyndale,Inc.(773/384-0800) lighting and lampshades. Wild Apple Graphics, Ltd.(800/756-8359)fine art reproduction prints and posters.* *Available in Museum of American Folk Art Book and Gift Shop. For mail-order information, please call 212/496-2966.

Manticore's America's Art Quilts Screensaver

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MUSEUM

NEWS

St. Madeleine Sophie's Center BY TANYA HEINRICH

Inspired Poetry n March, as part of the Museum's Young Poets Project, students from New York elementary, middle, and high schools were invited to tour the Museum's exhibition "SelfTaught Artists of the 20th Century: Perspectives on Patterning" and write poems inspired by what they saw. Tours were led by Lee Kogan, director of the Folk Art Institute and the exhibition's project coordinator; she was

/ Mark Rimland Some Flowers in Her Hair

Greetin9 Cards

Prints Ori9inal Art 2119 East Madison Avenue El Cajon,CA 92019-1111 Phone: 619.442.5129 E-mail: stmsc@cts.com Website: www.cts.com/king/stmsc Serving Adults with Developmental Disabilities

JOHN C. HILL - ANTIQUE INDIAN ART 6962 E. 1st Ave.,Suite 104 Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 (602)946-2910 • email:antqindart@aol.com Exhibiting at the 15th Annual ANTIQUE ETHNOGRAPHIC ART SHOW Santa Fe • August 14.15.16 • Sweeney Center

ZUNI OLLA • Circa 1880's • 13 7:n dIa.

82 1\I I

HK K

3 Sixth-grade participants in the Young Poets Project from the Children's Storefront School in Manhattan heft to right): Julian Washington, Calvin Washington, Johnathan Milton, teacher Bruno Navasky, and Isaiah Burdett

Left to right: Elise Paschen, Amiri Baraka, Susan Wheeler, August Kleinzahler, Claudia Rankine, Gerard C. Wertkin, and Joan Sandler

accompanied on the first tour by poet Jayne Cortez, who offered her own reflections on the artworks to the assembled students. Poems were submitted by sixteen participants from Blessed Sacrament's Youth Empowerment Program, Central Park East Secondary School, The Children's Storefront School, LaGuardia High School, and P.S. 199. The poems were judged by William Louis-Dreyfus, secre-

EPSTEIN/POWELL 66 Grand St., New York, N.Y. 10013 By appointment(212)226-7316

tary of the board of the Poetry Society of America, and poet Sini von Reis. The program was coordinated by Joan Sandler, the Museum's director of education and collaborative programs. An awards ceremony and a poetry reading co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America was held on May 13 to celebrate the project. "Poetry in Public Places: Vernacular Visionaries" featured dynamic readings by poets Amiri Baraka, August Kleinzahler, and Claudia Rankine, with welcoming remarks by Museum director Gerard C. Wertkin and Elise Paschen, executive director of the Poetry Society of America, and introductory remarks by poet Susan Wheeler. Louis-Dreyfus presented awards to young poets Rafael Collazo, Kali-ma K. Smart, Kim Vigilia, and Homer Williams, and an award of special distinction went to Johnathan Milton for his poem "Pop Is Here," which he was invited to read.

Upcoming Fall and Winter Exhibitions his fall the Museum galleries will be furnished with a stunning array of richly hued and elaborately patterned folk marquetry pieces. "Masterpieces in Wood: American Folk Marquetry from the Hirschhorn Foundation," on view from Oct. 3, 1998, to Jan. 10, 1999, is the first definitive, fullscale examination of the history and makers of folk marquetry in America, a popular art form during the last half of the 19th century. Marquetry—an overlay technique in which intricately cut and shaped wood chips and veneers are used to create variegated surfaces—is a hallmark of fine 18th-century European furniture. The technique was brought to the United States during the 1840s by skilled German immigrants who worked in the furniture trade here. While most marquetry makers were anonymous,some pieces may have been made by sailors at sea,farmers, and even prisoners. Folk marquetry has been referred to as "men's quilting" because of the similarity between marquetry designs and quilt patterns, and because it was probably produced exclusively by men. Organized by guest curator Richard Mdhlberger, the exhibition will include more than 75 objects—chairs,

John Maggiotto

(continued on page 86)

Jesse Aaron Rex Clawson Mr. Eddy Victor Joseph Gatto (estate) Lonnie Holley S.L. Jones Lawrence Lebduska Charlie Lucas Justin McCarthy Old Ironsides Pry Popeye Reed Max Romain Ody Saban Jack Savitsky Clarence Stringfield Mose Tolliver Chief Willey George Williams Luster Willis ...and other outsider artists

Vivid portraits ofAfrican-American Folk Artists : ,1111111011S

Talking with Tebe Clementine Hunter, Memory Artist

141.16., 11111[

Catching the Fire Philip Simmons, Blacksmith

Painting Dreams Minnie Evans, Visionary Artist

These stunning biographies,for children ages 8 to 12, chronicle the lives and works ofthree African-Americanfolk artists. Available at your local bookstore or directly from Houghton Mifflin at 1-800-225-3362. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN •222 BERKELEY STREET • BOSTON, MA 02116

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 113

•

111.21t>1

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0•

jilV/QcuLcT Magazine

•

8. • • • di, •• •I •

,•4

the magazine devoted to the art quilt. • , 11.17•

Specials for Folk Art readers: 4 quarterly issues for $28.($38 overseas) Sample copy $7 ($10us overseas)

**.A.r/Q1,1 till'

I3ook •S'errice**

Great Books for Great Inspiration and Gifts ***Send SASE for our list of art 8( quilt books ***

To subscribe, send check for $28($38us overseas):

•* • •• I.

i. • • • • • •

N •=1

,/litr/Qpiif IVIagazit

Folk Art Offer PO Box 630927 / Houston, TX 77263-0927 fax 713/975-6072

(MC/V accepted)

• P •• S. •a'

DISCOVER the largest museum collection of American Folk Art prints. Colorful quilts, samplers, portraits, landscapes. Over 150 prints beautifully illustrated in new full color catalog. Send $6.00:

masterpieces of American folk art re-created by David Guilmet Portraits, Landscapes, and Still Lifes — with the works of Edward Hicks a specialty. Hollow Cast Chalkware. Velvet Fruit. Carved and Painted Bird Trees. Special commissions welcome. When the original is no longer available DAVID GUILM1T CREAMERY 2878 ROAD, SOLEBURY, PA 18963-0038 215-297-8977

84 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

HEDGEROW HOUSE 6401 East Rogers Circle•Boca Raton, Florida 33487-2647 Tel(561)998-0756 • Fax (561)998-0763

A Very Special Collection... HANDMADE ADAPTATIONS inspired by designsfrom the Museum of American Folk Art's collection of tradesigns, weathervanes, and whirligigs. Now available at the Museum ofAmerican Folk Art Book and Gift Shop located in New York City. For information MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART COLLECTION

14110

contact the Museum at 1-800-358-1960. limadd@spectranet.ca

NEW ENGLAND'S ULTIMATE FOLK ART & CRAFT SHOW & SALE! "One of the top 25 craft shows in the country" Early American Homes Magazine

Museum-quality reproductions of American antique furniture and accessories, both country and formal, contemporary folk art and the highest quality crafts by America's most talented artisans.

ROYAL PLAZA TRADE CENTER Rte. 20, 1 mile west of 1-495, Marlborough, MA

Country Folk Art Festival "Unparalled Traditional CraftsmanshipJudy Marks, Box 134, Glen Ellyn, IL 60138 (630) 858-1568â&#x20AC;˘fax:(630) 858-4568

OCTOBER 16 - 17 - 18, 1998 Fn., October 16, 6pm - 10pm, Adm. S7.00 Sat., October 17, 10am - 6pm, Adm.$5.00 Sun.. October 18, 11am - 5pm, Adm.$5.00 Travel & Lodging Information.(508) 460-3747

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 85

MUSEUM

NEWS

A Gallery @ Wares For Art Continuedfrom page 83

representing American/European Folk Artists of the 21st Century Guy Beining D. Belardinelli Carl Benedetto Ross Brodar Herm Freeman Charles Lassiter Donald Pierce Jim Prez John Sheldon Demise Smith Tommy and more

Ben Augustus Carol Badly HeM Dingemans Paulus de Groot Hans Hartman Jaco Kranendonk Ad Maas Ody Saban Gerard Sendrey Hans Verschoor I. S. Wierenga and more

By Appointment 421 Hudson Street #220 N.Y. N.Y. 10014

(ph) 212-989-7845 • (fax) 627-1797 • www.waresforart.com

ARTIST CHLICKIE BURGESS DULANEY SYBIL GIBSON GLASSMAN REV. J. L HUNTER M.C. St JONES CHARLEY KINNEY R. A. MILLER

tables, boxes, clocks, gamepaper, enigmatic chewing gum boards, and other furniture and sculptures, whimsical dolls, phodecorative works, including a tographic collages, and assemviolin case—drawn from the colblages of found objects. Curator lection of Robert and Marjorie Lee Kogan has selected approxiHirschhorn and recent gifts to the mately 75 works to show Rowe's Museum. The centerpiece of the artistic development within the exhibition is a secretary made of more than 21,000 pieces and 300 different types of wood."Masterpieces in Wood" will be accompanied by a 240-page, color-illustrated book, and is supported, in part, by TENNECO and American WoodJEWELRY BOX WITH ORNAMENTAL PEN DRAWING OF A GIFT SWAN worker magazine. maker unidentified, United States, c. 1850, pine and maple For a feature-length INSIDE, inlaid with baleen, ebony, and tortoise shell, 5/ 1 4 x 13/ 1 4 article on this sub- collection of The Hirschhorn Foundation ject, please see p. 40 in this issue. The winter season will feature social and historical contexts in the exhibition "The Art of Nellie which she lived. The exhibition Mae Rowe: Ninety-Nine and a will be accompanied by a 112Half Won't Do," on view from page, color-illustrated catalog, Jan. 16 to May 16, 1999. Nellie and is supported, in part, by The Mae Rowe (1900-1982), a selfJudith Rothschild Foundation and taught African American artist The Andy Warhol Foundation for from Vinings, Ga., created colorthe Visual Arts. saturated, energetic works on

REGINALD MITCHELL ROYAL ROBERTSON SULTAN ROGERS ISAAC SMITH MARY T. SMITH LAMAR SORRENTO JIMMY LEE SUDDUTH

\ I I.

1,01 K \K I

Museum Forms Junior Group he Museum has recently formed a Junior Group to involve a younger generation with the development of the Museum and to foster excitement about the field of American folk art. The group is open to individuals 35 years of age and under; its organizing committee chair, Alexis Shein Contos, is bringing together a wide range of people to plan and participate in unique events designed to inform and inspire younger collectors and

enthusiasts. The first event will be a walking tour of the Fall Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory on Friday, Nov. 20, at 6:30 P.M. Please see p. 16 for details. For more information on joining the Junior Group, please call Jennifer Scott, Development Associate, at 212/977-7170.

Annual Esther Stevens Brazer Memorial Lecture n June 1, the Folk Art Institute presented the Esther Stevens Brazer Memorial Lecture, held every year in the spring, at the Museum's Eva and Morris Feld Gallery at Lincoln Square. Brazer was an author and teacher who single-handedly fostered a renewed appreciation for the historic tradition of American painted decoration. Cynthia Van Allen Schaffner presented an exuberant and highly informative lecture, "19th-Century American Painted Furniture," for the 85 people in attendance. Schaffner is the author of Discovering American Folk Art and, with Susan Klein, Folk Hearts: A Celebration ofthe Heart Motifin American Folk Art and the recently published American Painted Furniture. The gathering was also an appropriate time to commemorate the enthusiastic service of select members of the Museum's tireless corps of volunteers. Gerard C. Wertkin, director; Joan D. Sandler, director of education and collaborative programs; and Lee Kogan, director of the Folk Art Institute, joined Trustee Frances Sirota Martinson Esq. in presenting special service awards to Deborah Ash and Joan Bloom of the Folk Art Institute; Arlene Hochman,docent coordinator; and Lynn Steuer, outreach coordinator. Gallery manager Dale Gregory and docent coordinator Arlene Hochman presented awards in recognition of the loyal service of our gallery docents to eight-year docent Joan Bloom; five-year docents Deborah Ash, Beth Connor, Roberta Rabin, Judy Rothstein, Linda Simon, and Rachel Strauber; and three-year docents Bella Kranz and Heather McClure.

loom

11 II

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Representing: Benny Carter, Charles Simmons & Others

Newly Discovered Artist: Lecturer Cynthia Van Allen Schaffner

Reverend J. A. King & Others

SOUTHERN FOLK ART PICICER P.O. Box 1312, Ridgeway, VA 24148

(540) 956-3669 UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

KING OF THE WESTERN SADDLE The Sheridan Saddle and the Art of Don King Museum docents and Folk Art Institute volunteers loan Bloom and Deborah Ash

BY TIMOTHY H. EVANS An appreciation of the western saddle and one of the most acclaimed saddlemakers. Includes 24 full-color plates and 38 black-and-white illustrations. $25 cloth

TWO ZUNI ARTISTS A Tale of Art and Mystery BY KEITH CUNNINGHAM A revelation of how Zuni art, past and present, is an essential expression of the Zunis' life and heritage. Includes 90 photographs (20 in full color). $25 cloth

Left to right: Museum volunteers Janice Haynes, Gloria Davis, and Sherrill Kraus

Visa•MC•AmEx•Discover http://www.upress.state.ms.us

Orders: 1-800-737-7788

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 87

MUSEUM

THE

NEWS

ZETTER COLLECTION

SELF-TAUGHT ART

REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:

Summer Exhibitions and Programming Highlights

DEWEY BLOCKSMA ALAN ST. JAMES BOUDROT SPOT DANIEL LEE GODIE LONNIE HOLLEY L-15 JUSTIN McCARTHY RHONDA MILLER PHILADELPHIA WIREMAN MARY PROCTOR JON SERL HENRY SPELLER THAI VARICK PURVIS YOUNG

une 15 marked the members' reception in celebration of the opening of the Museum's two summer exhibitions:"Edge to Edge: Selections from Studio Art Quilt Associates" and "Mary Ann Willson: Artist Maid." A large and enthusiastic crowd was on hand, and many of the 18 quilt artists represented in "Edge to Edge" were in attendance. The jewel-like installation of the works of Mary Ann Willson, a little-known early 19th-century folk artist, serves as a visual balance to the bold and energetic art quilts, a contemporary expression of the quiltmaking tradition. With the traditional quilt as a reference point, the quilt artists use a variety of media and techniques and draw upon popular culture, social commentary, and art theory for inspiration. The annual Quilt Weekend will be held Sept. 11-12, and will feature an all-day quilt workshop,

5570 OLD HWY. 395 N., CARSON CITY, NV 89704 PHONE: 702-885-2827 FAX: 702-885-6850 E-MAIL: lzmgmt@pyramid.net WEBSITE: www.zetteroutsider.com

CONTEMPORARY FOLK ART FROM THE DEEP SOUTH

"Painting Techniques on Fabric for Quiltmakers," led by quilt artist Yvonne Porcella; a symposium with panelists Robert Shaw, Yvonne Porcella, and Dottie Moore; and quilt guild demonstrations. "Mary Ann Willson: Artist Maid" is presented in conjunction with the Lincoln Center Festival's Patience & Sarah, an opera that is based upon the story of the artist's life and which received a glowing review in The New York Times. While Willson's vivid watercolors are steeped in the conventions of the c. 1800-1825 period in which she was working, her visionary watercolors reveal a startlingly different perspective than that of her contemporaries, with an intensity of color and unique use of decorative pattern. "Edge to Edge" is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog. Both exhibitions are on view through Sept. 27.

"Perspectives on Patterning" Programming Highlights

4 www.antonart.com

ANTON HAARDT GALLERY By appointment only: 2714 COLISEUM STREET NEW ORLEANS, LOUSIANA 70130 (504) 897-1172

88 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

S 6 elf-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: Perspectives on Patterning," which was on view at the Museum from March 14 to June 6 as a companion to the Museum's traveling exhibition "Self-Taught Artist of the 20th Century: An American Anthology," provided the opportunity for a lively series of programs, beginning with a curatorial tour by guest curator Elsa Longhauser on March 19. On March 26,Jon Ippolito, assistant curator at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo,related the story behind the recent rediscovery of a number of drawings by Martin Ramirez in his lecture,

"Disappearance and Discovery: The Ramirez Drawings at the Guggenheim." The centerpiece of"Perspectives on Patterning," the group of 10 drawings fortuitously was uncovered at the museum's storage warehouse where they had been languishing in a cardboard tube for nearly 40 years. On May 28, Arthur Danto, art critic for The Nation, presented a lecture entitled "Folk Art and Modernism." Danto contributed an essay to the catalog that accompanied the exhibition. On May 21, an evening symposium, moderated by Museum director Gerard C. Werticin, fea-

Museum trustee Anne Hill Blanchard with dealers Kerry Schuss and Randall Morris at the "Perspectives on Patterning" symposium

tured panelists Howard Dodson, chief, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Jack L. Lindsey, curator of American decorative arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Robert Storr, curator of painting and sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art; Ann Temkin,curator of 20thcentury art, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and respondent Lee Kogan, director of the Museum's Folk Art Institute. Dodson emphasized African American folk art and its presence withinâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;rather than outsideâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the community. Lindsey outlined how the Philadelphia Museum of Art's current collect-

ing interests are a continuum of its folk art acquisitions dating back to the 19th century and spoke on the need for major art museums to acknowledge the importance of American folk art. Storr spoke of his experiences as a student in Chicago and his exposure to local Dealer Phyllis Kind and scholar Elka Spoerri at the symposium self-taught artists such as Joseph Yoakum and Lee Godie. Temkin related her experiences with the installation of the "Anthology" show in Philadelphia and her personal response to the artworks.

Museum Charlotte Zander Schlor3 Bonnigheim

Josef Wittlich July 18- November 1,1998 Matija Skurjeni November 7 - March 1999 HauptstraBe 15, D-74357 Bonnigheim, Germany Tel.07143-4226 Fax.07143-4220 Opening Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m. -3 p.m.

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 89

FALL

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Call 1-800-847-7378 TTY users, call: 1-800-833-6262 Please mention priority code FDNI when you call. There are costs associated with the use of this card. You may contact the issuer and administrator of this program, MBNA America Bank, to request specific information about the costs by calling 1-800-847-7378 or writing to P.O. Box 15020, Wilmington, DE 19850. 'Certain restrictions apply to this benefit and others described in the benefits brochures sent soon after your account is opened. MBNA and MBNA America are federally registered service marks of MBNA America Bank, N.A. MasterCard is a federally registered service mark of MasterCard International Inc., used pursuant to license. 01997 MBNA America Bank, N.A. ADG-H-5 ADG-8-4-97 ADG-QAAB-8/97

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The following programs will be held in conjunction with the exhibition "Masterpieces in Wood: American Folk Marquetry from The Hirschhorn Foundation," on view from Oct. 3, 1998,to Jan. 10, 1999, at the Museum of American Folk Art's Eva and Morris Feld Gallery,2 Lincoln Square on Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets, New York City. Unless otherwise specified, these events are free and open to the public. LECTURES

Thursday, November 5 6:00 P.M. PIANO RECITAL Eugenia Monacelli

Wednesday,October 7 6:00 P.M. CURATORIAL TALK Richard Miihlberger

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PROGRAMS

Thursday, October 22 6:00 P.M. HISTORY,TECHNIQUE, AND A PERSONAL APPROACH Silas Kopf, master craftsman Wednesday, November 4 6:00 P.M. PIECES OF THE PUZZLE Katherine Howe,curator of decorative arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

SUNDAY AFTERNOON CHILDREN'S WORKSHOPS 2:00-4:00 P.M. For children age five and up. Materials fee: $1 This series of children's workshops will be held every other Sunday in October, November, and December. Halloween and Thanksgiving will be celebrated. Come join us and make wonderful creations using a wide variety of colorful materials. September 13 & 27 October 11 & 25 November 8 & 22 December 6

The presentation of the exhibition "Masterpieces in Wood: American Folk Marquetry from The Hirschhorn Foundation" is supported in part by TENNECO and American Woodworker magazine. The Museum's public programming is funded in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. TRAVELING

EXHIBITIONS

Mark your calendars for the following Museum of American Folk Art exhibition when it travels to your area during the coming months: Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology July 14—Sept. 20 Feb. 20—April 18, 1999 High Museum of Art Memorial Art Gallery of the Atlanta, Georgia University of Rochester 404/733-4400 Rochester, New York 716/473-7720 Oct. 31, 1998—Jan. 24, 1999 Presented in two parts at Amon Carter Museum Fort Worth, Texas 817/738-1933 and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Fort Worth, Texas 817/738-9215

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TRUSTEES/DONORS

MUSEUM

AMERICAN

FOLK

ART

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Executive Committee Ralph 0. Esmerian President Frances Sirota Martinson, Esq. Executive Vice President and Chairman, Executive Committee Lucy C. Danziger Executive Vice President

Joan M.Johnson Vice President Bonnie Strauss Vice President L. John Wilkerson Treasurer Jacqueline Fowler Secretaty Anne Hill Blanchard Samuel Farber Julie K.Palley

Members Joyce B. Cowin Joseph F. Cullman 3rd David L. Davies Vira Hladun Goldmann Susan Gutfreund Kristina Johnson, Esq. Nancy Mead

George H. Meyer,Esq. Lauren S. Morgan Cyril I. Nelson

Mrs. Daniel Cowin Mr.& Mrs. Edgar M. Cullman, Sr. Joe & Joan Cullman Susan R. Cullman Lucy & Mike Danziger Peggy & Richard Danziger David L. Davies Ray & Susan Egan Ralph 0.Esmerian Samuel & Betsey Farber Bequest of Eva & Morris Feld Jacqueline Fowler Vira Hladun Goldmann

Cordelia Hamilton Johnson & Johnson Joan & Victor Johnson Kristina Johnson Susan & Robert Klein The Edith & Herbert Lehman Foundation,Inc. Lipman Family Foundation Paul Martinson, Frances Martinson & Howard Graff in memory of Burt Martinson Mr.& Mrs. Dana G. Mead George H. Meyer, Esq.

Lauren & Keith Morgan Cyril I. Nelson Bequest of Mattie Lou O'Kelley Julie & Sandy Palley and Samuel & Rebecca Kardon Foundation George & Myra Shaskan Bonnie & Tom Strauss Maureen & Richard Taylor David & Jane Walentas Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP John & Barbara Wilkerson Robert & Anne Wilson Five anonymous donors

Louis Dreyfus Corporation The Joe & Emily Lowe Foundation, Inc. Eric Maffei Vincent & Anne Mai MBNA America, N.A. Microsoft Matching Gifts Program Morgan Stanley Foundation New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York State Council on the Arts The New York Times Company Foundation Philip Morris Companies Inc. Steven Piccone, Merrill Corporate Dorothea & Leo Rabkin Marguerite Riordan William D. Rondina The William P. & Gertrude Schweitzer Foundation, Inc. Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons,Inc. George F. & Myra Shaskan, Jr. Peter J. Solomon Sotheby's Lynn Steuer Time Warner Unilever United States Foundation, Inc. Two anonymous donors

Allan & Kendra Daniel Richard M.& Peggy Danziger Michael & Janice Doniger Nancy Druckman Richard C.& Susan B. Ernst Foundation Scott & Lauren Fine Fortress Corporation Jay & Gail Furman Peter & Barbara Goodman Warren & Sue Ellen Haber Marion Harris & Jerry Rosenfeld Stephen M. Hill International House of Blues Foundation Harry Kahn Allan & Penny Katz Steven & Helen Kellogg Mr.& Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder Jerry & Susan Lauren Fred Leighton, Ltd. Patrick M.& Gloria M. Lonergan Maine Community Foundation Michael & Gael Mendelsohn The Overbrook Foundation J. Randall Plummer Daniel & Susan Pollack Drs. Jeffrey Pressman & Nancy Kollisch Raymond & Linda Simon Louise M.Simone Nell Singer Mr.& Mrs. Elliot K. Slade R. Scudder & Helen Smith Richard & Stephanie Solar Spaulding Jeff Soref The Judy & Michael Steinhardt Foundation in honor of Ralph 0.Esmerian Patricia A.& Robert C. Stempel Donald & Rachel Strauber Stanley & Doris Tananbaum Jim & Judy Taylor

Trustees Emeriti Cordelia Hamilton George F. Shaskan, Jr.

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN DONORS The Museum of American Folk Art has announced a $26 million campaign to construct and endow a new home on 53rd Street. As of May 28, 1998, more than $13.8 million has been raised from the following donors: Edward V. Blanchard & M. Anne Hill Florence Brody Edward Lee Cave

RECENT MAJOR DONORS FOR EXHIBITIONS AND OPERATIONS The Museum of American Folk Art greatly appreciates the generous support of the following friends: $100,000 and above Estate of Dail lel Cowin Lucy C.& Frederick M. Danziger Ralph 0.Esmerian Estate of Laura Harding The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. Lila Wallace—Reader's Digest Fund L. John & Barbara Wilkerson Anonymous $50,000499,999 Edward V. Blanchard & M. Anne Hill General Cigar Company Joseph Martinson Memorial Fund Julie K.& Samuel Palley Barbara & Thomas W. Strauss Fund Anonymous S20,000—$49,999 Burnett Group Edward Lee Cave Peter M.& Mary Ciccone Mrs. Daniel Cowin Joseph F. Cullman 3rd David L. Davies & Jack Weeden Raymond C.& Susan Egan Virginia S. Esmerian Samuel & Betsey Farber Jacqueline Fowler Vira Hladun Goldmann Mr.& Mrs. John H. Gutfreund Estate of Maridean Watt Hutton Joan M.& Victor L. Johnson National Endowment for the Arts Restaurant Associates Industries, Inc. The Smart Family Foundation Inc. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Two anonymous donors

810,000—S19,999 Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company John R.& Dorothy D. Caples Fund Virginia W.Cochran Country Living The Dietrich American Foundation & H. Richard Dietrich, Jr. William B. Dietrich & William B. Dietrich Foundation Kristina Johnson,Esq. Mr.& Mrs. Robert E. Klein The LEFF Foundation Kiyoko & Nathan Lerner Nancy Mead George H. Meyer, Esq. The Magazine Group Marstrand Foundation George H.& Kay Meyer Lauren S. Morgan The Pinkerton Foundation The Judith Rothschild Foundation Schlumberger Foundation, Inc. Jean S. & Frederic A. Sharf Fund Tenneco Anonymous $4,000—$9,999 American Folk Art Society American Woodworker magazine ARTCORP Cecille Barger & Myron Befit Shure Alvin J. Bait & Sons Beard's Fund Robert & Kathy Booth Mr.& Mrs. Steve Burnett Christie's Cravath, Swaine & Moore Duane, Morris & Heckscher Gallerie 721 Gateway 2000 T. Marshall Hahn, Jr. Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies Barbara & Dave Krashes

$2,00043,999 A La Vieille Russie, Inc. ABC,Inc. Amicus Foundation, Inc. David & Didi Barrett Bergen Line, Inc. Ellen Blissman Mr.& Mrs. James A. Block Richard Braemer 8z Amy Finkel Barry D. Briskin Edward J. & Margaret Brown John R. and Dorothy D. Caples Fund Cigna Joseph & Barbara Cohen Mr.& Mrs. Edgar M. Cullman

(continued on page 94)

FALL 1998 FOLK ART 93

TRUSTEES/DONORS

MUSEUM

AMERICAN

FOLK

ART

Continuedfrom page 93

Peter & Lynn Tishman United States Trust Company of New York Don Walters & Mary Benisek Irwin H. & Elizabeth V. Warren Peter & Leslie Warwick Olive F. Watson Anonymous $1,000â&#x20AC;&#x201D;$1,999 Alconda-Owsley Foundation Mama Anderson Mr. 8z Mrs. James A. Block Mr. 8z Mrs. Thomas Block Seema Boesky Mr.& Mrs. Sheldon Bonovitz Botanica Marvin & Lois P. Broder Diana D. Brooks Lawrence & Ann Buttenwieser Carillon Importers Inc. Cirker's Moving & Storage Co., Inc. Liz Claiborne Foundation The Coach Dairy Goat Farm Katie Cochran & Michael G. Allen Conde Nast Publications Mr.& Mrs. Edgar Cullman Lewis B. & Dorothy Cullman Cullman & Kravis, Inc. Marion Dailey Mr. & Mrs. Allan Daniel Mr. & Mrs. Frederick M. Danziger Mr.& Mrs. Richard Danziger Michael Del Castello Mr.& Mrs. Robert E. Denham Derrel B. DePasse Don & Marian DeWitt Mr.& Mrs. Charles Diker Mr.& Mrs. Jack Dodick Eve Dorfzaun The Echo Design Group,Inc. Mr.& Mrs. Alvin H. Einbender Theodore & Sharon Eisenstat Epstein Philanthropies John Farber & Wendy!! Brown Burton & Helaine Fendelman Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Geismar Fred & Kathryn Giampietro Mr. Howard Gilman Dr. Kurt A. Gitter 8z Ms. Alice Yelen Eric J. & Anne Gleacher Barbara Goldsmith The Goodnow Fund Barbara L. Gordon Baron J. & Ellin Gordon Eugene M. Grant and Company Robert M. Greenberg Stanley & Marcia Greenberg Bonnie Grossman Anne Groves Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro Cordelia Hamilton Mr. & Mrs. James Harithas Robert F. Hemphill, Jr. Ellen E. Howe Robert J. & Fern K. Hurst Sandra Jaffe Linda E. Johnson Harvey & Isobel Kahn Louise & George Kaminow Mr. & Mrs. Gerald P. Kaminsky Mr.& Mrs. Michael Kellen Diane D. Kern

94 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

The Hess & Helyn Kline Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Lash Mr. 8z Mrs. Jerry Lauren Mark & Taryn Leavitt Diana Lee in memory of Seymour Margulies Barbara S. Levinson Peter & Nadine Levy Lynn M. Lorwin Dan W.Lufkin & Silvia Kramer Christopher & Linda Mayer The Helen R. & Harold C. Mayer Foundation Judith McGrath Robert & Meryl Meltzer Mr.& Mrs. Stanley G. Mortimer, III Cyril I. Nelson Philip V. Oppenheimer Mr.& Mrs. Richard D. Parsons Burton W.Pearl, MD Guy Peyrelongue Mr. & Mrs. Daniel Pollack Polo Ralph Lauren Mortimer & Eugenie Propp Irene Reichert Mr.& Mrs. Keith Reinhard Betty Ring John & Robert Robson William D. Rodina The San Diego Foundation Charmaine & Maurice Kaplan Fund Mr.& Mrs. Marvin Schwartz H. Marshall Schwarz Stephen Score Joseph & Janet Shein Mr. 8z Mrs. Ronald Shelp Harwicke Simmons Joel & Susan Simon Mr. & Mrs. Elliott Slade Sanford L. Smith George & Susan Soros Mr. & Mrs. William Stahl, Jr. David & Ellen Stein Mr.& Mrs. Geoffrey Stern Mr.& Mrs. Jeff Tarr Cathy E. Taub & Lowell C. Freiberg Maureen Taylor David Teiger Tiffany & Company Mr.& Mrs. Peter Tishman Mr. 8z Mrs. Michael A. Varet Gerard C. Wertkin G. Marc Whitehead John & Phyllis Wishnick Laurie Wolfe & Ann C.S. Benton Susan Yecies Mr. 8z Mrs. William Zabel Two anonymous donors $5004999 Joe C. Adams Ted Alfond Ms. Mary Lou Alpert Richard C.& Ingrid Anderson R. Randolph Apgar & Allen Black James & Deborah Ash The Bachmann Foundation, Inc. Jeremy L. Banta Frank & June Barsalona Henry Barth Dr. & Mrs. Alex Berenstein The Bibelot Shops

Peter & Lynn Bienstock Mary F. Bijur Mrs. Helen Bing Leonard Block Seema Boesky Jeffrey & Tina Bolton Joseph & Joan Boyle Ian G.M.& Marian M. Brownlie Gale Meltzer Brudner Guy K. Bush Robert T. Cargo Cavin-Morris Gallery The Chase Manhattan Foundation Matching Gift Program Karen D. Cohen Suzanne Cole Mr.& Mrs. Stephen H. Cooper Judy Cowen Michael F. Coyne 8z Monica Longworth Cathy Cramer Mr.& Mrs. Lewis Cullman Susan R. Cullman Kathryn M. Curran Julie S. Dale Aaron & Judy Daniels Mr. & Mrs. Richard Danziger Gary Davenport Keith De Lellis Michael Del Castello Alvin & Davida Deutsch Mr.& Mrs. Gerald T. DiManno Lynne W.Doss Cynthia Drasner Howard Drubner Arnold & Debbie Dunn Alfred Engelberg Mr. & Mrs. Anthony Evnin Ross & Gladys Faires Frank & Fran Frawley Ken & Brenda Fritz Galerie Heike Curtze Daniel M. Gantt Mr. 8z Mrs. Bruce Geismar William L. 8z Mildred Gladstone Harriet & Jonathan Goldstein Mr.& Mrs. Baron J. Gordon Mrs. Terry S. Gottlieb Howard M. Graff Marilyn A. Green Mr. Robert Greenberg Peter Greenwald & Nancy Hoffman Grey Advertising, Inc. Susan Rosenberg Gurman Robert & Elizabeth Harleman Pria & Mark Harmon Brian C.& Ellen Harris Mr. & Mrs. James Hartithas Audrey B. Heckler Stephen Hessler Robert L.& Marjorie Hirschhorn Leonard & Arlene Hochman Rebecca Hoffberger Raymond E. Holland Carter Houck Robert J. Hurst Imperial Wallcoverings, Inc. Laura N. & Theodore J. Israel Mr. 8z. Mrs. Thomas C. Israel Pepi & Vera Jelinek Ann Jocelyn/Bank of New York Betty W.Johnson & Douglas F. Bushnell

Guy Johnson Robert J. Kahn Cathy M. Kaplan Dr. & Mrs. Rudy Kasni Fran Kaufman & Robert C. Rosenberg Leigh Keno Mary Kettaneh Jonathan & Jacqueline King Barbara S. Klinger Lee & Ed Kogan Mr. & Mrs. Theodore A. Kurz Robert A. Landau Evelyn & Leonard A. Lauder Wendy & Mel Lavitt Mr.& Mrs. John Levin James & Frances Lieu Mimi Livingston Monica Longworth & Michael F. Coyne Earle & Carol Mack Ian W.MacLean Richard & Gloria Manney Michael T. Martin Virginia Marx Mr.& Mrs. John A. Mayer, Jr. Grete Meilman Mr.& Mrs. Robert Meltzer Robert & Joyce Menschel Mr.& Mrs. Danny Meyer Evelyn S. Meyer Timothy & Virginia Millhiser Ira M. Millstein Randall Morris & Shari Cavin Museums New York Ann 8z Walter Nathan Mr.& Mrs. Bernard Newman Mr.& Mrs. Bruce Newman Victor & Susan Niederhoffer Mr.& Mrs. John E. Oilman Paul L.& Nancy Oppenheimer David Passerman William & Terry Pelster The Perrier Group of America Anthony J. Petullo Mr. 8z Mrs. Laurence B.Pike Terry R. Pillow Mr. & Mrs. Jack Rabin Mr. & Mrs. C. Carl Randolph in memory of Margery G. Kahn Mr.& Mrs. F.F. Randolph, Jr. Mr. 8z Mrs. Milton S. Rattner Paige Rense Ricco/Maresca Gallery Mr.& Mrs. Peter C. Rockefeller Roger & Alyce Rose Mr.& Mrs. Martin Rosen Mr.& Mrs. Winthrop Rutherford, Jr. Mr.& Mrs. Selig D. Sacks Elizabeth Lee Sample & Brenda Powers Merilyn Sandin-Zarlengo Judy A. Saslow Diane H. Schafer Linda & Donald Schapiro Paul & Penelope Schindler Margaret Schmidt Richard J. & Sheila Schwartz Mrs. Stewart Seidman Mr. 8z. Mrs. Robert Shapiro Arthur & Suzanne Shawe (continued on page 95)

TRUSTEES/DONORS

Bruce B. Shelton Dr. Christian Shriqui Randy Siegel Mr. & Mrs. Raymond Simon Nell Singer Dr. Meredith F. & Gail Wright Sirmans John & Stephanie Smither

MUSEUM

AMERICAN

FOLK

ART

Sotheby's Geoffrey A.& Elizabeth A. Stern Mr.& Mrs. Donald Strauber Mr.& Mrs. Victor Studer Myles & Roberta Tanenbaum Ruben Teles & James Adams Donald & Barbara Tober Dorothy Treisman

Mr.& Mrs. Raymond S. Troubh Anne Vanderwarker Andrew Vansickle Mr.& Mrs. George Viener Karel F. Wahrsager Clifford & Gayle Wallach Mrs. Sue Ann Weinberg Bennett & Judie Weinstock

Mr.& Mrs. Roger Weiss Herbert Wells Anne G. Wesson Jane Q. Wirtz Susi Wuennenberg Mr. & Mrs. Tim Zagat Jon & Rebecca Zoler

Renaye Cuyler Allan & Kendra Daniel Michael Del Castello Nancy Drucktnan Peter & Barbara Goodman Barbara L. Gordon Howard M. Graff Bonnie Grossman Samuel Herrup Pepi & Vera Jelinek

Harvey Kahn Allan Katz Susan Kleckner Barbara & David ICrashes Ronald & Jo Carole Lauder Dan W.Lufkin Keith Morgan J. Randall Plummer Roger Ricco Marguerite Riordan

Jean S. & Frederic A. Sharf Joseph & Janet Shein Raymond & Linda Simon Richard & Stephanie Solar Arthur Spector David Teiger Ski von Reis Irwin H.& Elizabeth V. Warren Anonymous

Ted Ludwiczak Ray Mann George H. Meyer Cyril I. Nelson

Dorothea & Leo Rabkin Maurice C. & Patricia L. Thompson Virginia Zabriskie

JEAN LIPMAN FELLOWS Co-Chairmen Patrick Bell & Edwin Hild Meredith F. & Gail Wright Sirmans 1998 Members Mary Benisek & Don Walters Robert & Kathy Booth Marvin Broder Edward J. & Margaret Brown Alexis & George Contos

RECENT DONORS TO THE COLLECTIONS Gifts Judith Alexander Ralph 0. Esmerian Stephen Feeney

Jacqueline Loewe Fowler Robert Goldwitz Herbert W. Hemphill, Jr. Drunell Levinson

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FALL 1998 FOLK ART 95

MAIN STREET ANTIQUES and ART Colleen and Louis Picek Folk Art and Country Americana (319) 643-2065 110 West Main, Box 340 West Branch Iowa 52358

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INDEX

Two carved and painted, naive folk art birds, circa 1930s-1940s.

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American Folk 36 American Primitive Gallery 8,19 Americas Society/The Spanish Institute 27 The Ames Gallery 34 Antique Arts 23 The Antiques Dealers' Association of America, Inc. 78 Barbara Archer Gallery 37 Art from the Inside 95 Art/Quilt Magazine 84 Kathryn Berenson 22 31 Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery Caskey-Lees 79 Cavin-Morris Gallery 2 Christie's 12 Chronicle Books 33 Country Folk Art Festival 85 Country Living Inside Back Cover William Doyle Galleries 39 Epstein/Powell 83 Laura Fisher 20 Fleisher/Oilman Gallery 3 Forbes & Turner 95 Galerie Bonheur 35 A Gallery @ Wares for Art 86 Sidney Gecker 16

96 FALL 1998 FOLK ART

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Stella Rubin Shelton Gallery John Sideli Steve Slotin Susan Slyman Sanford L. Smith & Associates Sotheby's Southern Folk Art Picker St. Madeleine Sophie's Center Jef Steingrebe Stella Show Management Company Kimball M. Sterling, Inc. Jan Thiede-Smith Tops Gallery University Press of Mississippi Angela Usrey Gallery Walters/Benisek Nancy Weaver Webb Gallery David Wheatcroft Wilton Historical Society Yard Dog Ginger Young Gallery The Zetter Collection

18 92 17 72,73 91 24,75 14 87 82 78 92 81 74 74 87 26 4 92 25 10 77 86 36 88

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CARVED AND PAINTED WOOD • 61 INCH WINGSPAN

PILOT HOUSE EAGLE • NEW YORK, CIRCA 1865

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